A Capable Woman
by ThePandoraRose
Summary: A life story of Angela Petrelli: We are not born full of sin, we acquire it over time. Arthur, Peter, Nathan, Heidi, Meredith, Claire, Charles, Maury, Linderman, Adam, Claude, Kaito,The Haitian, Bob, Elle, the 12. We are all weak, before we are strong.
1. Prolouge

**Title:** A Capable Woman: _A Life Story of Angela Petrelli_

**Winner 8 Heroes Het Awards 2009:**

1st Place Best Angela Characterization, 1st Place Best Claude Characterization, 2nd Place Best Adam Characterization, 2nd place Angela & Arthur Best Character Pairing, 2nd Place Best Chapter Fic, 3rd Place Best Dramatic fic, 3rd Place Best Daniel Linderman Characterization, 3rd Place Best Male Characterization: Charles

Thank you for all who voted. And remember honest feedback helps the writer. :)

**Chapter: **– The Prologue (0/28)

**Characters/Pairings (This chapter):** Angela/Arthur Cameos: Nathan, Peter & Claire

**Characters/Pairings** **(The Entire Series)** Angela, Arthur, Peter, Nathan, Nathan/Heidi, Meredith, Claire , Charles, Maury, Linderman, Adam, Claude, Kaito, Kaito/Angela, The Haitian, Bob, Elle, HRG, mention of Hiro, Monty, Simon and the rest of the 12. (You do not have to be an Angela fan to read this series, she will come into contact with everyone.)  
**Category:** General (with a splash of tragic love)  
**Status: **In complete  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** Allusion to sex  
**Spoiler alert:** The entire series: Graphic Novel: War Buddies and one passing mention of the character from a different Graphic Novel. A cut scene from Godsend.  
**Summary:** We are not all born full of sin, we acquire it over time.  
**Prologue Summary**: We were all young once. Every story has a beginning; the point of no return. One's first weakness to something or someone. Angela Petrelli's first weakness was him.  
**Note**: (Do not judge my prose by my notes, it is now 3am, when I post this)

Each chapter is written as one whole, separate, story and can be viewed as such - together they are a life. I have made each chapter short for that purpose.

This is my attempt of the life story of Angela Petrelli. I call it "A" life story – because it is one tale, not thee tale. I have decided to keep as close to canon as I possible can, taking all my ideas from the road map I see the show has laid out for me. I have decided not to guess the powers of any of the elders, other then Angela and except the ones we know. This is because we just don't have any clues -- and to spectate would be too far out of the ballpark, for my taste. So, I have decided to _allude_ to any powers we don't know about or just show them in the only context the show has shown us : IE – what Charles has done as far as we have seen. Otherwise, I have planted little hints to fan theories, so feel free to pretend the founders have the powers you want them to have. I'd like to keep the same mystery as the show, for now, but I answer a lot of other questions for sure. As for Angela's power -- I have made a guess based on my own theories and the themes of my story. Enjoy.

I also like to use a third person multi POV since its similar to the way television works, if you were watching it – and I don't have great actors to convey the characters feelings. I however do have a rhythm and a reason to it and POV will only be of The Petrelli Family only: Arthur, Angela, Peter, Nathan and some Claire -- it is their memories, so to speak.

As I read someone "say' on a blog, "Feedback is love," please send feedback my way, good or bad, constructive or not. I worked very hard on this story and I would love too see what people think. It's become part of my heart. :

**Thanks:** To my beta JuneSea. I can't do any of this with out, remember that.

Prologue: Enter Pandora's box. Open the lid. I dare you.

* * *

**A Capable Woman: **_A life of Angela Petrelli_

_We are not born full of sin, we acquire it over time._

"_You don't know everything about me, Nathan, but … I know what you're capable of."_

_-- Angela Petrelli_

* * *

_**Prologue**_

* * *

Arthur Petrelli was the first man to ever make love to Angela Petrelli and he was the last. She hadn't been a virgin on her wedding night, but Arthur was still her first. She felt connected to him in a way she had never felt with any other human being. It must be love, she told herself, what else could that connection be? She was young, she was only eighteen and she had no idea what was in store for her, she only had optimism and romantic schoolgirl notions in her head.

Arthur Petrelli always got what he wanted, and what he wanted was Angela. The sweet and feisty young girl he felt an instant connection with, yet didn't know why. Her pale white skin, her long, dark hair and her deep hazel eyes that looked brown in the moonlight, sent shivers down his spine. He knew when he saw her she had to be the one. He had never felt that connection with another person before. By the time they were engaged Arthur was 22 and Angela was only 19, he'd been with women, he'd seen the world and Angela yet hadn't. She was chaste and he liked the game, but as soon as he slipped that huge ring on her finger he figured her fair game and his for the taking.

He seduced her, that summer in 1965 in the boathouse of his parents Hampton's beach home.

"If you love me, you'll do this?" he told her.

All she had to do was look into his brown eyes and she was his.

The entire house was empty, everyone had gone to town. Arthur made some excuse to stay back and let Angela sleep in. She was quite surprised to wake up to an empty house - it didn't seem usual to her.

All she really remembered was the smell of salt water and the sound of the waves; the look in his eyes and the sound of the door closing behind her. The door creaked and a soft wind blew, as she heard the door shut. The sound caused Angela to turn quickly toward Arthur. She didn't understand why he closed the door.

He kissed her passionately, told her how much he loved her. She looked scared at first, yet willing. He ran his hand slowly around her waist.

It felt good and all she wanted to do was please him. It was before she knew better. It was before she had grown enough, maybe too much. She stopped, and at that moment he would have stopped if she had asked him to, but she said nothing.

"Angie..." he said breathlessly, but she covered his mouth with her fingers, the coldness of her ring hitting his lips. And she kissed him. He would be the last person to ever call her by that nickname; she was never Angie again.

He smiled and slowly unbuttoned her dress to reveal her slip underneath. He helped her out of it and laid her down backwards into the bottom of a small, old boat.

She felt goose bumps on her arms from an open window.

He'd tell her she looked like an alabaster China doll. Telling her she wouldn't regret this, as he took off his shirt. Oh, but she would regret so much. So, much more. This was nothing; just a blip, but it was a start.

"It's gonna hurt at first, just a little," he told her." He pushed her hair away from her face and behind her ear, lightly stroking her cheek. He saw small tears hit the corner of her eyes. She was always an emotional girl, he told himself. "But, I promise you, " he said with all his sincerity. "It will be the last time I will ever hurt you."

It was the first of many promises he would never keep. He meant to keep them, he just never could. And for Angela, like many of the things in her life that would first cause her pain, she would soon learn to enjoy it.

It didn't feel at all like she thought it would. She would soon learn the same was true for all of life's experiences; it never felt like one expected it to. She was just too naive to understand it at that moment; too young to make her own choices. Too young to lead, she could only trust and follow. She was lost; she was weak. It was a feeling she would promise herself, later in life, she would never let herself feel again - the weak pushed down by the mighty. She would learn the hard way. And if she wouldn't learn from her lessons, someone would.

For the moment she held onto his back for dear life, a mistake she would make a hundred times over -- before she became a strong woman. Before life had made her a strong person. Before she knew he had hurt her. And for a short time even after that, she would still hold on for too long. And she said nothing, no matter how much pain she was in, because she so wanted him to love her - she was still such a child.

This was the moment where destiny was hatched and there was no looking back – the moment Angela was first lost. Lost completely. Before she learned her lessons. Before she had children. Before her fall from grace. Not her life, not her soul, but love would be her downfall, telling herself years later that, "love was overrated." And to her it was, because the only man she truly loved, never loved her back as much as she loved him. He thought he did; she just didn't agree.

Married by 19, pregnant by 21 and an army wife by 22, Angela Petrelli's life had started out so idyllic, turning slowly into something lonely and scary. Little did she know it was nothing compared to the nightmare her life would further drift into. The future Mrs. Angela Petrelli had a lot of growing up to do, and she would learn none of it the easy way.

And one day when she would decide for herself that it was too late for her, and there was no turning back, Angela would vow that someone in her family would learn from her mistakes, if not herself. Someone would benefit, some good would come out of her descent into the madness; something just had to.

A mother always worries about the future. What will happen to her children when she's not around? An army wife feels the same about her husband. Angela Petrelli had felt a twinge in the summer of 1962, and flashes of it she couldn't understand in 1965, but it wasn't until the birth of her son Nathan that her ability would fully manifest -- manifest to an extent where she could fully understand it, as something out of the ordinary, when she would feel the full extent of her gift. And it was even longer after that before she could even refer to it as such. Even that time was short lived, for Angela learned what she could do was not a gift, it was a burden. Yes, it wasn't until Angela was much older that she really understood her full potential. And what it taught her was to always be careful what you wish for, to be tough. Because knowing more than you want to know is never a good thing - as much as one would think otherwise.

In the present, Angela lightly lifted her slender fingers off her aged black and white wedding photo, and set it back on the table where she had found it.

"So you want to know my story?" Angela Petrelli questioned ominously, putting out her hands to her family. "With Peter's help," she looked at her son, "I'll show you, then."

Peter nodded his head, claire nodded hers and Nathan did the same. They all took hands. Angela closed her eyes and with Matt's power Peter projected Angela's thoughts into Claire and Nathan's heads.

And so it begins. Be careful what you wish for.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One:

**Characters: **Angela/Arthur & Cameo by Nathan

**Notes:** Please Review. Reviews are love.

* * *

**Arthur and Angela**

_The Petrelli Estate, Long Island_

1965

* * *

There was nothing but darkness. Nothing but quiet and nothingness as Arthur slept in his bed. He was so sound asleep he didn't hear his bedroom door open and someone walk in, closing the door behind them.

It wasn't until Arthur felt the cool hands of his future wife running along his chest that he was awakened from his deep sleep.

"Angie.." he whispered, breathing in her scent of Chanel mixed with youth.

"Shusssh, " she whispered in the dark room, putting her perfectly-manicured finger to his mouth, adjusting her nineteen-year-old body on top of him.

"What are you doing here?"

"I want to try again," she said like a gleeful child.

He caught sight of her playful devilish eyes. "Not in the house, kid." He kissed her quickly, as if to say goodbye, but Angela wouldn't stop going for her goal. He pulled away from her. "Whoa… slow down girl…if our parents catch us…"

Angela smiled, bit her lower lip, and started to unbutton her nightgown.

"As much as I want to…" Arthur really didn't want her to stop. He smiled at her with his all- American, youthful grin.

"We can be quiet…" she whispered.

"Speak for yourself…" He slyly smiled as he let her unbutton his pajama shirt. He ran his hands over her thighs.

She kissed his neck and whispered into his ear, "I had a dream about us last night…"

"Did you?" He pushed aside her long, dark, hair and kissed her neck.

"We were married… a long time from now—40… 50 years…"

"Ah hummm…," he humored her as he lowered the straps of her nightgown to kiss her left shoulder. "I'm surprised you hadn't killed me by then…"

"It was soo vivid, the dream, like I could touch it."

Angela wondered if she should tell Arthur about her other dreams, but this was the first dream about her own distant future, it was still all new to her. Angela's power was evolving and she didn't even know she had one yet. She called it woman's intuition, or coincidence. Coincidence that she saw her father's death when he was all the way across town at the time.

She was fearful to tell anyone, of what they would do to her – how they would treat her. And even after she had met others like herself and knew she wasn't alone, Angela would be just as fearful of revealing who she was and what she could do, even to her own children, but she would tell herself it was for their, " own good."

Arthur leaned into Angela's chest and she held him to her, looking off as if remembering it all, "We had two boys…handsome...like you. "

"Did they have names? It will make it a lot easier when we have them, " he joked.

"Nathan and Peter…"

He looked her in the eye. "I was kidding. You named them?"

"I…I.. didn't? In the dream they…. already had names.…" It occurred to her at that moment this was the case.

"No girls?"

"No?" Angela was confused. She suddenly was beginning to see this dream wasn't like her other dreams; something was different. They seemed more real, not just ideas, visions or shards of moments.

"Angie, if you keep talking _this_ ain't' gonna happen. Everyone gets up in five hours."

"It all just looked so perfect." She gazed into his eyes like the starry-eyed young girl she was. "I didn't think that could be possible?"

"Looks can be deceiving, sweetie." But, he didn't say sweetie in too sweet of a way.

"They all looked, we all looked so happy."

"Everyone looks happy from the outside, Angie," he said it as if repeating himself. He was ready to stop talking.

"What's that suppose to mean?!" Angela's fire emerged.

"Nothing. It was just a dream. You want us to be happy, Angie. We are. The future is not written, that's where we come in. We will not be like our parents, I promise you." Arthur was ready to put all the talk of the future to bed.

"I want to be good at this…"

"You will be…" he teased suggestively.

"I want to make you a good wife…"

"You will…" And he kissed her.

"A good mother…"

"You will…" And he lowered her onto the bed.

Angela hoped she'd get pregnant that night.

* * *

**The Next Morning**

* * *

At breakfast, Angela and Arthur couldn't help looking at each other with bedroom eyes. What they didn't know was they were giving themselves away. Angela's mother knew it, Arthur's mother could see it, and Arthur's father didn't care.

Arthur's parents had invited Angela's mother to join them and the newly-engaged couple at their summer house for the month, in preparation for when they would all be one family – when they would all be connected. It was what the rich and semi-rich did back in the 1960s. Weekends and summers in homes that lay dormant during the winter time, far from the city and prying eyes. For the Petrelli family, it was customary to spend the entire summer out on Long Island. It was a tradition that stopped with Arthur's parents; Angela liked the city. And besides Angela Petrelli's future would not be that of living a life of leisure - not by any means. She would not have time for summers in the country.

After breakfast, Angela knew something was wrong when she eyed her mother talking to Arthur's mother in hushed tones off in the background of one of the estates musty rooms..She felt worried and sick, that sixth sense seemed to kick in. She didn't know what it was, but something was about to happen - Angela knew her mother that well. This had nothing to do with dreams.

"Angela," she heard her mother call her name. "May I see you in the library."

Angela's face grimaced out of her mother's view. "We're going to play tennis. When we get back," Angela snapped. She wasn't kidding when she would tell her granddaughter years later, where she got her mouth from.

Arthur stood in front of Angela, halfway between her and the front doorway that lead to the outside world and escape.

"Now," her mother's voice bellowed through the entire house.

Angela knew that meant she would have to listen.

**

* * *

**

Angela & Beatrice

* * *

Angela entered the Petrelli's library while her mother stood behind her in the doorway. Then it all happened in a moment. One second Angela could hear the doors behind her close and the next she felt her hair being pulled and her body flung to the ground. Angela landed smack down on the carpet with a crack, knocking the wind out of her and making her stomach queasy with the shock. She could feel the rug burns on her knees and a stiffness in her back. This was the most physical her mother had ever gotten with her. Yet, somehow she wasn't surprised.

"You're sleeping with him, aren't you!" her mother shrilled into her daughters ear. It was a statement not a question.

"I..I.. "Angela swallowed hard. "He's going to be my husband…" She was shocked by what was going on, what had she done wrong?

"Flaunting it around here. Humiliating me, --_you_ in front of the Petrellis. To tell the world that **my **daughter will never be a virgin on her wedding night."

"But, Mama." Angela started to cry; she had not yet learned to hold on to her emotion.

Her mother walked toward her slowly. "You've never understood the consequence of your actions, child. Your lucky Mrs. Petrelli doesn't throw us out of this house and call off this wedding…"

"No!" Angela exclaimed. "I.. I love him… He told me…" She sucked in her tears. "He told me…" She took a breath. "That if I loved him I'd do this for him!"

"You will learn very _very_ quickly little girl that love does not save the world. Your entire generation will. Love does not account for anything in this world. And men like Arthur Petrelli will use it to get what they want from you, Angela. And when you let them, they will have you. And you will be gone. Lost. Always." She said through gritted teeth.

" You have been warned -- don't say I didn't warn you?" Her mother walked away from Angela. "Stand up," she demanded.

Angela looked up at her mother, but didn't move; her eyes were sad and sullen.

"Stand up!" her mother demanded a second time.

Angela slowly stood, took a deep breath and sucked in the rest of her tears. A nd for the first time in the conversation Angela looked regal and strong. Angela was taking control of herself.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Her mother's face was hard and resolute.

There was a short pause while Angela's mother waited for a response.

Angela stared down her mother, cold and hard. "I'm sorry that Daddy never loved you the way Arthur loves me." There was fire in her eyes; the seeds of her future self.

Angela's mother slapped Angela across the face, hard. "Your nothing but an insolent, spoiled little girl. You know nothing of the way life works.. But one day, Angela, your wicked, evil, ways_ will_ catch up with you; catch up with you and... god. And you will come back with your tail between your legs, but it will be all gone, all gone, you will have wasted it all away… there will be nothing left but ashes. And it will be all your fault." She stood face-to-face with Angela, but Angela wouldn't take her mother's gaze. Beatrice leaned in slowly, "And as long as you're still under my roof, you will not humiliate me in front of god, this community or the Petrellis."

Angela finally looked up at her mother, her eyes hard with held-in rage."Well, soon enough I won't be under your roof anymore, will I?" Angela snapped without even thinking.

And again, Angela was slapped across the face by her mother, as if it was a knee jerk reaction. This one took Angela a moment to recover from. The slap left her head lowered and her face red, she held her hand to her face.

Angela's mother walked away from her daughter as she spoke."You're lucky you've got that pretty face, because that's all you have going for you. " Her mother sat down in a large easy chair to Angela's right, keeping her her in a fuzzy peripheral view." Good to get the rich husband now." It was almost as if her mother was jealous of her own daughter. "Before your blush of youth leaves you. I say in five years tops." She paused and looked at the girl who's face was still lowered. "Go wash your face." She feigned concern, but it still didn't remotely sound like anything nice. "This pains me just as much as it pains you, my dear. You'll soon learn what being a mother means. Then you'll know. Then you'll know the pain I feel."

Angela walked quickly out of the room, her head lowered, closing the door behind her and leaving her mother alone.

Beatrice took a long breath, almost a sigh, before reaching her hand out, toward a small table on the other side of the room. Across the room, on that very table, a tea cup started to shake, just for a brief moment, before flying across the room and into Beatrice's hand, with only one gesture. She sipped her tea in silence.

* * *

**ANGELA**

_A Month Later _

* * *

The first thing Angela heard was the sound of birds. The sounds of the birds waking up in the dew of a brand new day.

Angela awoke to the crispiness of a June morning, her wedding day. She missed the feel of Arthur at her side, but knew once the day was through he would always be there. There was a hum in the air and for a change Angela felt rested. No bad dreams, nothing to disturb her - the future was at her feet. She out stretched her arms and yawned. She pulled her content body out of her white sheets, dressed only in a small cotton slip, with her long tattered hair flowing around her. She had that sun-kissed look only youth can provide.

"Angela!" she heard her name being yelled from out the window and down below. "Angela!" her name was bellowed to her, as a rough wind blew the white curtains open in her bedroom.

Angela glided over to the window and looked out. Outside on the lawn she found Arthur yelling to her from below. Angela put her hand to her chest and smiled, almost brimming with pride of his love for her. - the life they would lead together; the possibilities.

"Angie!" the boy yelled as he threw down his tennis racket and his friends laughed. "Angela! I love you!," he declared in the early morning air.

His friends joked and ribbed him, but to Angela it was the sweetest sight.

"Do you love me, Angie!!" His whole face looked like a lovesick puppy.

"Yes," she said with all her joy, trying to match his intensity.

"You know boys, I don't hear her that well, do you?" Arthur kicked off his shoes and ran for the trellis under Angela's window. He gripped his hands onto the wood thatching, pulling himself up toward Angela's window.

His friends yelled, some liking it, some worried for him. He climbed the wall like a spider, finally reaching to the top and his prize, Angela.

"What are you doing?!" Angela laughed. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"What was I gonna do, fly up." He flashed his large grin, the one she couldn't resist - it was that Petrelli charm.

"That grin is gonna get me in trouble," she joked.

"Ohhh, my dear..." he cooed jokingly. "I plan on it." He kissed her soft and passionately.

The kiss felt so tender, Angela had to set her hands on his face, lightly stroking it when their lips parted.

Arthur was caught with that look in his eyes that young love does to a person.

Angela sent her hand through his hair and he raised his eyebrows at her.

"And adieu my dear princess, I must away with my round table," he joked.

"You're drunk," she scolded with a sly smile.

"No, drunk was two hours ago, I am now nothing more than wasted ... which means I should feel my hangover coming on any moment now. And now I must away, away with my knights." He turned toward his friends. "Knights we must away!"

"Here, here!," yelled Arthur friends.

"Away!..." And Arthur slipped a little off the trellis.

Frightened, Angela reached out and caught hold of him.

"I'm fine." He looked at his friends. "I'm fine." He looked a little freaked out himself.

"He's fine!," they yelled, repeating him. "Hip, hip." And they paused. "Huzzah!" they yelled at themselves.

"I live to fight another day..." And he kissed her. "See you at noon, I'll be the one at the front dressed in black, you can't miss me." And he made his way down the trellis and back to solid ground. "Don't worry, kid," he smiled. "You and me we're gonna change the world, I promise you!" And Arthur ran off with his friends.

Angela turned from the window and bit her lower lip. "He's gonna marry me." She smiled to herself.

Suddenly the entire room filled with flames, from the ground up. Seething the curtains and the bed, rising up from the corners of the room and over the bed post. Suddenly a young man appeared in the middle of the flames, dressed in a nice suit, an American flag pin on his lapel - she recognized him from her dreams.

"Nathan?" She reached out to him, taking a few steps forward.

"It's all your fault, Ma," he said with acid tones." It's all your fault." And then he burst into flames.

Angela woke up in her bed screaming, her heart racing, tears streaming down her face. Her body had that feeling of the cold shakes and her breath was labored.

"Angela!" she heard her name yelled from outside her window again. It was Arthur, just like before, just like in the dream. The sound was coming from the lawn below her window.

Angela walked slowly to the window, feeling a sense of dread and deju-vu. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with her fingers and her left arm. She could feel the carpet under her feet, the light breeze hitting her nightgown. She hid, halfway behind one of her curtains, unsure, feeling shy and small. She watched Arthur, looking like he had in her dream, walking with his friends, looking just as they had in her dream, walking across the back lawn, and it scared her.

"Angela!" he yelled.

Angela ducked behind the curtain, clinging to the wall, not responding. For a moment she held her breath. When Angela didn't answer Arthur and his friend's voices faded from earshot, and off into the distance.

Inside Angela's bedroom, she hadn't moved from her spot up against the wall, as she hugged her knees. She was scared out of her mind. It was happening again, only worse. The dreams that had slowly started when she was sixteen we're getting stronger every year, with more and more details. She could no longer ignore it. She could no longer throw it away to coincidence. Something was happening to her.

Angela sobbed uncontrollably out of fear. Not for fear of marrying Arthur, but too many different fears all together. She didn't know what her dream had meant, but it scared the hell out of her. She was frightened for herself, for Arthur, for the future. What Arthur would do if he found out her secret? Would he no longer love her? Would he fear her if he discovered what Angela had been slowly figuring out herself, that the dreams she talked about weren't just dreams, they were visions. But, most of all, Angela cried because she was confused, unsure, lost, not understanding what was going on with her. What was happening? She didn't want to be odd or different, she just wanted to be normal. She only wanted to live a normal ordinary life. But, what Angela wasn't, was normal. She was more than ordinary. Angela was extraordinary in so many ways. And she was capable of so much more. A women capable of so much more.

* * *

_"We dream of hope. We dream of change. Of fire, of love, of death. And then it happens. The dream becomes real. And the answer to this quest, this need to solve life's mysteries finally shows itself. Like the glowing light of a new dawn. So much struggle for meaning, for purpose. And in the end, we find it only in each other. Our shared experience of the fantastic. And the mundane. The simple human need to find a kindred, to connect. And to know in our hearts... that we are not alone." - _

_**Dr. Mohinder Suresh

* * *

**_

**Next Chapter**: The Birth of Nathan Petrelli


	3. Chapter Two : Nathan

Chapter Two

**Characters: **Angela/Arthur Baby Nathan, Peter, Claire & Adult Nathan

* * *

**June 1965**

The Wedding Reception of

Angela & Arthur Petrelli

_The Petrelli Estate, Long Island_

* * *

"And I present to you, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Petrelli," announced the bandleader as Angela and Arthur joined hands toward the dance floor.

The Petrelli family had set up a large lavish gathering outside, among the trees and flowers, in their own personal backyard - very exclusive and very private.

Looking like a regal couple Arthur led his bride slowly around the makeshift dance floor. He grinned like a born king; cocky with a sense of something he truthfully had no idea about. His friends hooted and hollered off in the distance, like the boys and not men they were; much like Arthur himself. Angela had a cool calm look in her eyes. She knew this was a pivotal time in her life, she had no idea why, she just felt it should be. Angela was growing up a small percentage point at a time. This was a step.

Together they were a handsome couple. Many would remark on that.

"Arthur…," Angela whispered, her eyes looking off at the people around her. She was very serious. She looked like snow white, pale skin, red lips, dark hair. She looked like the china doll, Arthur saw her as. The perfect wife for a Petrelli man. He had done well. Many would say Arthur was a lucky man.

"Ang, I see my Aunt Pearl, do me a favor – you see her coming – make some excuse for us –"

"Arthur…."

"Yeah?" He wasn't looking at her.

"What if we didn't have children right away?" She finally caught his eyes and Arthur saw something different in them.

Arthur looked at her funny."I thought you wanted to have kids?"

"I do. I do. You know I do. But, what if we waited…"

"Why?" he pressed in confusion.

"Not for long –we could travel…"

"I told ya, Angie, we're gonna do that. Paris, France, Italy…"

"Paris is in France..." she said crossly.

"You know what I mean…," he was agitated. "Where is this coming from?"

"I could finish my education…"

"Angie. …you're my _wife._ I thought – I thought this was all figured out – no no," he gritted his teeth. "We are not having this _conversation_, right here – not in front of everybody-- not in front of all our family and friends…I thought this was figured out, Angela." He put on his fake smile.

"You said you loved the fact that I wanted an education – that I wanted to be _more_ than just a wife and a mother."

Arthur's voice was now a low raspy whisper. "That was before you agreed to marry me, Angie… you made your choice." He felt her trying to leave and he held her in place. "You want to be a dried up old career woman, be my guest you have ever right– but you _agreed _to be my wife**, NOW** – I thought that was understood when you agreed to marry me…" Arthur was only spouting the talk of the times. He didn't know any better. He only knew he wanted the life he saw around him. He wanted that idea. But, it was only an idea.

The music ended. Angela gave Arthur one of her stern looks and she walked away from him with long strides, her passion so vivid it seemed to waft behind her like a smoke trail.

Arthur put on his best fake smile for the crowd, it was all about appearances, and made a beeline after her.

He caught her as she hit the house entering the back door of the kitchen where the wait staff was preparing dinner for the wedding guests. It was a sea of noise, jarring to the senses. People yelling, men dressed in white and black, the sounds of plates and silverware clanging and hitting each other. The heat from the ovens was so overcoming it was like walking into a blanket of fire. The shock burned the eyes and bombarded the senses. Angela had to turn her head away and as she did a large flame of fire burst up into Angela's view catching her off guard. She screamed and held in her breath. It was only a man setting fire to a dessert . She took her hand to her chest in fright. She could hear her heart beat through her white dress.

"Come here!" Arthur grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into a broom closet and shut the door.

The closet was just small enough for the both of them. It was musty, cluttered and darkly lit. The only light came from the sun beating down through a high window behind Arthur's head, dripping him in a yellow hue.

"You can't do this! You can't go back on our agreement," he told her intensely.

"Agreement, what such agreement– we never had--." Her voice was shrill and pointed.

"This is what a woman does now. She _**chooses**_ Yes, she has a choice, but she _**choose**_**s.** Angela! You can't have it both ways. "

Angela tried to interrupt, but he kept on going.

"I don't understand.. I…When you agreed to marry me…I thought you made your choice… I want a wife, Angela. What I'm looking for is a _wife_ – you know **that.** Just like my father had and his father before him – I'm not… I'm not built for this world." He took a breath. " I want you – I want you to be happy I want..." He paused for a moment. "Don't I make you happy? Aren't I enough?" He truly meant his last remark and it was as if asking it wounded him.

"I can't believe you would ask me such a question," she furrowed her brow.

Arthur took a moment, not saying anything, holding in his anger. He finally spoke,"You want the world don't you?"

"I think I deserve it," she demanded.

He took a deep breath. Suddenly a large Petrelli grin ran over his face. "Then I'm gonna give it to you on a god damn silver platter."

She set her hands on his face and kissed him.

"Wait, wait. You have to meet me half way, Angie." He lightly took her wrists.

"I will," she beamed.

"I'm not a man of 1965, you know that –you have to give me time— you have to bear with me.…"

"I know…"

"I need a wife…"

Angela nodded her head.

"Okay…" He nodded his head.

Angela ran her hands around his waist, her head to his chest and he kissed the top of her head. "You want the world. I'll give it to you." It was just another promise he could never keep.

That night Angela and Arthur danced to Hey Love, by Stevie Wonder, alone in their honeymoon suite, her head on his chest, his hand holding hers, slow and close. And that night, with her laying on his chest, her hand in his, her hair hitting his face, Arthur leaned into his young bride's ear and whispered. "On a silver platter, baby. On a sliver platter."

**

* * *

**

**Arthur Petreli**

**1967**

_Manhattan_

* * *

Screaming. First there was nothing, but screaming.

"What's wrong, what's going on?" Arthur Petrelli demanded. He could hear his wife screaming all the way into the waiting room as the doors to the maternity ward flapped open and shut behind him.

"It's best that you stay where you are, stay in the waiting room, Mr. Petrelli."

The nurse tried, but it was hard to hold him back.

Arthur's emotions had the better of him. "What's going on? Something's wrong?"

"Please, Mr. Petrelli. You need to stay here." And the nurse ran back into the restricted area.

Arthur Petrelli felt something he had never felt in his life: helplessness.

It was 1968 and men didn't go into the delivery room with their wives. They sat in the waiting room or at the bar across the street, smoking cigars and drinking gin and tonics. But Arthur was frightened for his young wife and child. Drinking and smoking were the furthest from his mind. Arthur, not an emotional man, found tears almost come to his eyes. But, being the military man he was, being a man of his generation, he held them in.

Left alone in the hallway for the first time Arthur felt fear. Something he felt wasn't right for a man to feel, but he felt it. He was fearful for his family and it's future. For his wife; for Angela. She was so young, what had he done to her? He had promised her the world and it just hadn't worked out that way. Life had just gotten a hold of them and promises were never kept. Arthur was feeling that famous Petrelli guilt. It would not be the last time he would feel that way. It was the first time Arthur Petrelli felt paternal. And the first time he had that wish: That he could change the world for his child – that he could protect him from it.

All he could do was wait, worried and anxious for the birth of what Angela told him would be the first of two sons. He told her she couldn't know the future so distinctly and now he wished he did. He wished he knew his son's fate. If only to ease his mind.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Angela & Nathan Petrelli**_

_**

* * *

**_

Inside the delivery room Angela couldn't believe the pain she was in, it was more than her twenty-one-year old body thought it could handle, but Angela could handle more than she could ever dream of and even more than that.

She had never felt such pain in her life, if she only knew it would be nothing compared to the pain of losing a son, but today she was gaining one, her first. After two miscarriages, Angela Petrelli had finally carried a child to term.

Clammy, sweating, screaming, crying, Angela wasn't doing so well, she was panicky which wasn't good for her or the baby. She couldn't do it anymore and she wanted to give up. Five hours of labor and she was alone, no husband to protect her.

The nurse and doctors were a flurry of activity, Angela knew something was wrong and it made her more and more agitated. The more she was told to calm down, the more her blood pressure rose. It wasn't good.

She was young, scared and no one was there to hold her hand. It was her first lesson in relying on herself. She screamed and hollered, gritted her teeth. Sweat poured off her face and she started to sob. It was messy and unbecoming and she couldn't handle it.

The next thing Angela knew she felt the prick of a needle in her arm. Her body felt weightless and she seemed to float away. The feeling was nothing new to her. Her eyes slowly fluttered and darkness covered her lids. And then Nathan was born.

In the waiting room Arthur sat in a chair, his head lowered, his hands held together in front of him, when he heard his name called to him. He lifted his head and the doctor motioned Arthur over to him. Arthur knew something was wrong. The doctor told him and walked away.

"She was wrong..." Arthur took a step back and put his hand over his mouth, he shook his head in shock. "She was wrong…" He looked pale and spent. In the future, his son would utter a similar phrase after the death of his brother.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Arthur & Angela Petrelli**_

_

* * *

_

Arthur was at her side, holding her hand, when they told her. Maybe it was the stress or the hormones, but she started ranting and raving, screaming and crying. But, first, before any of it happened, she just didn't understand. She wouldn't, "accept it, " as Arthur would tell the story, " She wouldn't accept the inevitable truth."

"I don't understand?" Angela questioned her doctor. She still felt achy and fatigued. Her entire body felt different and not her own.

Arthur held her hand, he already knew. "Angela, you need to listen to the man, you need to focus," he told her.

"There was a complication-- we saved your baby's life, your life." The doctor spoke with great concern.

"I don't understand..." She was in a state of shock.

Angela pulled away from Arthur. Arthur tried to take her hand again, but she hit it away.

"You won't be able to carry another child, Mrs. Petrelli…" The doctor tried to be as tactful as possible under the circumstances. " I am sorry..."

"No..." Her voice cracked and she wouldn't believe it. "It's not true."

Arthur tried to console her. "Angie."

"No, no." She was getting more and more upset " That's not how it's suppose to be. No, I ...I'm…" her emotional level was rising and rising.

"Angela!" Arthur reprimanded her like a small child.

"No..." Her head started to shake as the tears came. "Oh god no no noooo." Her stomach felt that hollow feeling. She became manic almost crazy. Her breathing become out of control, her head was dizzy, she couldn't feel her fingers.

"Sedate her!" yelled the doctor.

Angela felt her body lifeless and heavy and her eyes closed, her surrounding disappearing into nothingness, just as she felt. Angela Petrelli could have no more children.

_

* * *

_

_**The Present**_

_**Angela, Peter, Nathan & Claire**_

_**The Petrelli Home

* * *

**_

In the present, Peter pulled away from his mother's hand, being shocked back into reality, he could feel her pain and it was overwhelming.

Nathan looked on in a daze, unsure what was happening.

Angela had warned them that they had better to ready to except the truth when they took hands, and with Peter's power she would show them her story.

"Peter!" Angela yelled as she watched her son back away from her, breathing hard through his nose.

"Ma, what's going on?" Nathan was spooked. "Ma!" he demanded. "What's happening to him?"

Claire stood back, unsure what to do. It was all happening so fast.

Angela took hold of Peter's head stroking the side of his face. "Peter, Peter...," she tried to get his attention. " Peter, you need to breath - breath. You're feeling my emotions, my pain, it's not yours, just let it go– let it go– breath, breath. Breath it out."

"Ma, what is he doing?" Nathan was worried.

"It's his core ability, empathy, it's kicking in, he's keying into my emotions..." She never took her eyes off Peter. "Do you understand Peter? These aren't your emotions, they're mine --just let them go..."

Peter started to breath steadier.

"There it is, there it is." Angela smiled. "You're just feeling what I felt, do you understand? When they told me I couldn't have another child --it was like they were killing you–I had seen you so many times in my dreams, it was like… I already knew you–" She smiled, as tears started to well in her eyes. "Just let it go…" She stroked the side of his head.

Peter's breathing started to slow down.

"Nathan, get him a glass of water..." Angela said forcefully.

"I can do it," Claire spoke up.

"I'm fine," Peter grunted. "I'm fine," he said slowly. He didn't want to be coddled.

"Ma, I don't understand, whatdoya mean you couldn't have children after me?" Nathan demanded. "That doesn't make sense."

"We almost lost you, they had to save your life... they had no choice"

"But, I was there, Ma! I was there when Peter was born, I saw–I was— I know he's yours..." He gestured toward her with his hand.

"If you couldn't have another child after Nathan, then—" Peter could finally speak with out breathing heavily.

"That was before..." She took a deep breath, her emotions coming to the surface.

"Before?" Peter asked.

"Before you met, Linderman." Nathan got it, yet was still in shock as he said it out loud. It was his "aha" moment.

Angela and Nathan looked at each other. Angela's eyes filled with tears and she nodded her head yes. Peter looked at Nathan with a look of surprise. And they all soon joined hands again.

* * *

_** Petrelli & Linderman**_

_**1977**_

* * *

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Linderman asked her in his Kirby Plaza office.

"Yes," she said with tears in her eyes. "It's all I've ever wanted." She sucked in her emotions. "I want another child."

"Peter?"

"Yes…"

"Give me your hands, Angela," He put his hands out for Angela. "Don't be scared. It won't hurt a bit." He smiled. "I promise."

Angela took a breath and slowly offered up her hands to Linderman. They both closed their eyes.

Adam watched, hidden behind a half open door as if in a Shakespeare play. He was laying traps, traps for Petrellis. He knew what was most important to Angela and with Linderman they would use it to win her over, to bring her to their side. He would save his blood for more showy affairs of life and death.

"That's it?" Angela asked.

"That's it." Linderman said sweetly.

"I don't know how– some day I will thank you for this."

"Oh..." He smiled. "You'll find a way…"

Adam smirked behind the half open door. Linderman knew Adam was there.

"All you have to do Angela..." Linderman paused,"Is believe..."

Adam appeared from behind the door. Linderman looked at Adam, as did Angela. She was shocked to see him, yet not surprised. He was the one who had sent her to see Linderman.

"Can you believe, Angela?" Adam asked her. "Can you really believe?" And Adam took her hand.

And she did. Angela Petrelli believed in Adam, because she was looking for something to believe in. She so desperately wanted something to believe in, as desperately as she wanted her second child, and Adam knew that. It was here that Adam Monroe learned how to trap a Petrelli, by using what was dear to them: their family.

And as Angela looked up at the man who had helped her, taught her to wield her power, she didn't just see a man, or a leader, a teacher and her savior, but something much much more. Angela Petrelli was desperate for hope and with wide open eyes, Angela looked up at Adam Monroe, not as a man, but as something he had always wanted to be: a god. And it was something Adam Monroe liked very much.

And soon Adam would divide and conquer his friends, deeming who was special enough, who he needed enough and who was easy to ply toward his side, his own agenda. For Adam Monroe knew the only way to take away their power was to split them apart. Split apart what he had brought together and turn whatever followers he could into his disciples. That was why he chose them, that was why he chose Angela. That was how in the end, Adam Monroe lost, but won –by weakening the foundation.

_**

* * *

**_

_**The Present**_

_**

* * *

**_

"But, that's farther in the story... much farther…" Angela told her family in her head. Angela skipped back to where they had left off.

_**

* * *

**_

_**1967**_

_**Nathan & Angela Petrelli**_

_**Manhattan**_

**_

* * *

_**"Knock, Knock…" The nurse not only knocked on the door but spoke the words at the same time. She was trying to be cheery, she was just irritating as hell, Angela thought.

From her bed, Angela glanced over at the nurse in her doorway. But only for a moment, before rolling herself back toward the window, looking out with a glazed over look in her eyes. She felt like a hard rock, heavy and filled with nothing of note or purpose. Angela felt like everything she had known to be true didn't exist – nothing felt right. It was like she didn't know her left from her right. She had nothing to believe in anymore.

The Nurse had Nathan in one of those little hospital cribs with clear plastic sides to it. "I brought the baby …" The Nurse wheeled Nathan toward the other side of the bed, but Angela wouldn't look at him. "Gift from god…" The nurse said with her saccharin smile.

"What?" Angela asked in her groggy voice.

"Nathan – it means gift from god. I assumed you knew. Why you named him…?"

"Does it…" Angela's voice trailed off. "Maybe that's why…" She didn't seem interested, or maybe it just reminded her of her dreams and how they weren't anything at all, they were just dreams.

Then Nathan cried and it hit something in Angela's soul. She cocked her head toward the baby and the emotion hit her. Here was her child. Here was her son.

The nurse saw it. "Do you want to hold him?"

"Yes…" Angela pulled herself up in bed, she was still sore and it was hard for her to move. "I.. I don't know what to do," she confessed.

The nurse instructed Angela on how to hold him before she placed young Nathan in her arms.

"He's so small, " Angela laughed. Nathan took her finger and she smiled and cried out. She was in love. There was no turning back.

"I'll just leave you two alone for a moment." The nurse left the room.

Angela looked at Nathan, scared and unsure. "I'm too young for this, " she whispered to him. "I guess maybe we both are," she joked. Angela took a breath. She leaned in and kissed the top of Nathan's forehead. "I'm still going to do my best," she leaned her forehead to little Nathan's head. "I hope you can forgive me." She knew she would love him forever, and help him until there was nothing more she could do about it.

She would soon learn that cutting out her heart would be the only way she could save him. But, at the moment she hoped he would save her - he was her boy.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Nathan, Arthur and Angela Petrelli**_

_**Manhattan**_

**_

* * *

_**Angela and Arthur had a lovely home in the East 70s, near Central Park. Some called it a mansion, the Petrellis just called it home.

Angela followed her husband into the foyer. "What do you mean – this can't be – they can't just call you away – you can't go…" Angela's heals clipped across the black and white marble floor. She held Nathan on her hip.

"I don't have a choice in the matter, Angela."

"You have a son," she stressed.

Nathan cried and Angela tried to calm him.

Arthur was not happy with Angela's behavior."I enlisted and they're calling my number. I'm going. I have to serve my country, Angela. I want to serve my country."

"You can't leave me. You can't just leave me – us alone!"

He looked at her with stern eyes, "I wish I didn't have to." He set his duffle bag next to the door. "It's just my time. I have to play my part, my role. "

"I don't know why you had to enlist? You didn't have to." She shifted her weight from one leg to another, one of her quirks, one Arthur knew well. "You had to be a man. You had to prove yourself!"

"It's what a man does, Angela. A man fights for his country and his family. That's what I'm doing. I'm going," he demanded.

"I don't want to lose you!" Angela blurted out.

Arthur seemed agitated as if talking to a child, for she was, "Sometimes we all have to make sacrifices for a larger picture– the few for the many, Angela. That's war. "

"Well, I don't... I don't want to be at war." She tossed her head.

"Well, " he grunted, "No one said you had a choice." He took a deep breath through his nose, holding in his anger. "I think I still have some things up stairs."

And he left Angela alone with her tears. Angela held them in. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. It would not be the last time she would have that thought run through her head.

_**

* * *

**_

_**The Petrellis**_

_**Manhattan**_

* * *

Arthur Petrelli kissed his wife and his son goodbye, grabbed his duffle bag and headed toward a country he had never seen and a war he thought he understood.

"I'll be back, I promise you," he assured her.

"Yes well…" Angela adjusted his lapel. "If only this time I trusted your promises." She set her hand on his chest.

"Don't let this be our last--"

And she kissed him hard, her eyes full of tears. "I have every right to be angry with you…"

He nodded his head.

Angela held her son tight on her hip and close to her chest. "Just come back to me…and don't make me promises anymore – unless you plan to keep them."

Arthur kissed his son on his forehead. He lingered there for a moment as if hoping the moment would never end. And then he had to leave.

Angela watched him walk away and had only one thought in her head: she was too young to be widow.

* * *

**_Next Chapter:_** Angela must deal with raising Nathan alone with Arthur off at War. And the Petrelli's meet Daniel Linderman**.**


	4. Chapter Three

**Characters/Pairings (This chapter):** The Petrellis: Angela, Arthur, Baby Nathan, & Linderman  
**Warnings:** War  
**Spoiler alert:** The entire series: War Buddies 1-7  
**Note**: Each chapter is written as one whole, separate, story and be viewed as such. Together they are a life.

If you like this story, please recommend it to your friends. The more diverse feedback I get the more helpful it can be for an writer. Thank you.

And remember, feedback is love. Feedback, in all it's forms, good or bad, really helps a writer. Thank you.

* * *

**Chapter Three

* * *

**

After Nathan was born, before she held him for the first time, Arthur sat by Angela's bedside and held her hand, just like he had done after each of her miscarriages. After the first one, he crawled into bed with her and cradled her in his arms. After her second, he held her head while she cried. But, when Nathan was born Angela and Arthur said and did almost nothing; the silence said it all.

Arthur clenched her hand in his as Angela gazed off and out an empty window frame, it felt so surreal. She had seen Peter so many times in her dreams that she felt inside as if she didn't just gain a son, but lost another. It would not be the last time she would have that feeling.

It was as if the doctors had told her that Peter had died, because now he would never be. It all had to be wrong, because two sons seemed so right. It was like her entire world didn't make sense anymore. But, once she first heard Nathan cry, she knew at least she had him, at least she had Arthur. It would not be the last time Angela would feel she had to push on for the one son she had left.

And then Arthur left her alone. Her husband had gone off to war. And when a Petrelli made a promise, they kept it – at least they tried to. Arthur Petrelli had enlisted in the army, as his father had before him and his father before him. The Petrelli family believed service to one's country was important, something to be proud of. And now, finished with law school there were no more legitimate reasons left not to not be called off to war. A Little Over A Year and a Half Later

1968 was a hard year. Another Kennedy killed, Martin Luther King; violent riots at the democratic convention in Chicago. The world seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket, and Angela Petrelli watched it all on TV, along with scenes of a war she knew her husband was caught up in. Alone at this time, with a young son, it was hard not to grow up. It was hard not to lose one's faith. It was a time where people who said they wanted to change the world were soon becoming discouraged and filled with malaise.

During this time Angela was sure to hug and kiss Nathan as much as she could. Nathan was all she had and she clung to him like ivy. As much as she would to Peter once Nathan had grown and entered his father's world, no longer needing a mother. But, even back then, at such a young age, Angela could see Nathan had an independent soul, just like his father. Yet, others would say, just like his mother. Nathan still did not take to clinging to Angela as well as his brother would in the future. As soon as he could walk, Nathan started to walk away from her – walk away and never turn back. One night she had a dream he flew. She didn't know what to make of it. At that moment there was no way she could. In fact she soon forgot it for at least eight or ten years.

"Rose...," Angela called to her housekeeper, as the woman was about to leave for the night.

Rose was an older woman, about fifty, with dark red hair that was cut just above her shoulders.

"Could you mail this for me, it's a letter to Mr. Petrelli." She was telling Arthur that Nathan had taken his first steps. And a part of her wished she could travel with the letter and see first hand how her husband was doing, to ease her worry, to ease her pain.

All of a sudden Angela's eyes grew heavy. She saw flashes of something so fast her brain couldn't process them as anything, but large flashes of light.

"Mrs. Petrelli...?" called Rose, as Angela felt her body sinking to the ground and the marble foyer floor below her.

Angela could hear herself fall to the ground in an echoy thud. Her eyes slowly started to close, but for moments afterward she could hear the noise around her. Rose calling off for help, the pattering of her feet next to Angela's head. She tried to fight it, but Angela felt like something more powerful was pulling her –to where she had no idea.

When Angela's eyes opened she found herself in a dream-like state. She was in an unknown land to her -- a war zone. She lifted herself off the ground looking around as if on a foreign planet. She knew instantly it was a dream, but it was different, more complex and it had more detail then she had experienced before. She had always dreamed of places she had been, or would go, this was a place Angela would never go: Vietnam.

Angela could see everyone and everything, but they couldn't see her. She saw Arthur and his team gunned down - all dead, blood staining the letter she had written him. She called out to Arthur, but he could not hear her. He hung on, but it didn't look good. The bullets had gone clear through him.

A young blonde, British boy, the medic she thought, put his hands to Arthur's wounds and he was instantly healed. His wounds were no more. It wasn't possible, she thought, but she had seen it with her own eyes. Still, Angela feared it was only wish fulfillment and that she was in fact dreaming of Arthur's death. It frightened her to her core.

Angela turned to run, but ran right into something. Someone who knew she was there. Someone who could touch her, notice her and grab her as her weight was sent into his body, stopping her at full force. She was face-to-face with a young man standing in front of her. She looked up into his deep brown eyes, eyes that were somehow her own yet her husband's color.

"Nathan?" she spoke in shock.

"What have you done, Ma?" he said sullen and straight faced.

"I haven't done anything, I didn't... what did I do? He's dead isn't he? Your father?" She was a wreck of emotions.

"You killed, Peter." He grabbed her by both her arms.

"Peter?" Her stomach turned. "No, no. I didn't kill Peter, the doctors –they.. they killed Peter."

Just then the medic came up behind Angela and put his hand on her shoulder, "Let me help you Angela." He spoke in sweet tones.

Angela turned and looked at the medic, he looked nice enough, kind, but when Angela turned back toward Nathan he burst into flames, just like in her other dreams.

Angela screamed and then she was awake, in her own bed, with a doctor standing over her.

"Mrs. Petrelli…" The doctor took hold of her by the shoulder. "You passed out, Mrs. Petrelli. You're alright," he assured her.

Angela took a depth breath and nodded her head. "Water." She took another breath. "Could I have a glass of water?" Her voice was raspy for a moment.

"Has this happened before?"

"No...," Angela said softly. "No." She was telling a half truth, of course. The dreams had happened before, she had just never passed out from one.

"Could you be pregnant, Mrs. Petrelli?" The doctor inquired.

Angela looked at the doctor with tearful eyes. That one really stung. "No." She sucked in her emotion. "No," she said softly.

"Her husband's at war," Rose threw in quickly.

"I'm sorry," said the doctor.

"You didn't know." Angela tried to stand, but Rose and the doctor stopped her.

"Don't stand…" said the doctor. "Don't stand."

But Angela wouldn't listen and she stood anyway. "I want to see my son."

"Nathan's fine, Mrs. Petrelli," Rose assured her.

"I need to see him." Angela left the room, she could not be stopped.

"That woman is so protective of that boy, " Rose remarked. "It's like she thinks there's a _bomb_ around every corner."

"I see it all the time--This happens. When a women's husband goes off to war. It's a control issue. She can't control what happens to her husband, herself..."

"So she tries to control what happens to her son," Rose finished.

"I'm sure it's nothing. If she passes out again, call me. We'll run some tests." He picked up his doctor bag from the dresser. "She's probably just racked with worry. I see it with army wives all the time. Delicate little things, ya know?" How blind the doctor was to this woman, to women in general.

Angela slowly walked into Nathan's room. She gripped the doorframe for a moment and took a breath. She took long strides toward his crib and laid her long fingers across her son's chest. She held in her tears like the Hoover Dam.

"What were you trying to tell me, Nathan?" she tried to ask the baby, knowing full well he could never actually answer her.

This would be the time that if Arthur were around he'd tell her, "They're just dreams, Angie." But, Angela Petrelli knew her dreams meant something more. That her dreams were more than just dreams; that they were special. They just had to be, because the alternative was too scary to bear. That would be when Arthur would say, "We all want to be special, but unfortunately that's just not the case. To be special, you have to work at it. You must take action."

When Arthur Petrelli came back from the war he was a changed man. And being a changed man, he changed Angela, and perhaps not for the good, perhaps not even for the better. But, change is change; it's just what it is. He was moody and distant. Angela didn't know what to make of it and she feared that she couldn't do enough to help him; that she wouldn't know how.

She had grown so much, being alone with Nathan, for almost two years, while Arthur was away, but she still had so much more to go. At the beginning they felt like strangers to each other. It was hard. To hard for such a young couple only married less than five years.

War is hell, and it makes you lose a part of yourself – a part of yourself one never gets back. It would soon do the same to Angela. She just had no idea yet. She had no idea her husband would be bringing another war back home with him. No idea at all that war was about to knock on her own door.

And when a year or so later, maybe a few months, maybe almost two years – it's hard to remember - she was sure she saw the medic from her dream again, but yet not in dream, her stomach jumped. There he was in real life, off in the distance of Central Park, watching her and Nathan. He was too far away to tell for sure, but Angela felt something when she saw him, even at such a far distance, something in the pit of her stomach. The man held a notebook in his hands and Angela was sure he didn't know she knew he was watching her. Then Arthur approached her and Nathan, causing her to turn and greet him for a moment. It was only a moment, too brief to even mention, but when Angela turned back to where the man had stood, he was gone -- vanished from sight so quickly that it caused Angela to have that first thought -- that first thought that maybe what was happening to her was just what she had feared the most in life. It was the first time that Angela Petrelli feared she might be going crazy.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_Manhattan_

**

* * *

**

"Delusions of Grandeur…," explained the doctor as they stood in the Petrelli foyer.

It was the first time she heard the words. The words she would record in her memory. Words she saw drip off the man's lips as if the were a tidal wave crashing toward her.

"My husband's just depressed," she snapped in a defensive denial.

"Your husband has been through a lot, Mrs. Petrelli…"

"Don't talk to me like I don't know - I'm not a simple woman, doctor. I ask that you speak to me as honestly and direct as you would be with anyone else." She knew the doctor's misogynistic tendencies and she wouldn't stand for it. " I know…I understand what war can do to a man. I'm not naive or blind. Don't let my young face deflect the issue. I'm older than I look."

"Yes, I'm sorry. But, the truth is your husband – whatever his experience was -- being that close to death –– It can happen, seeing almost your entire platoon killed, you ask yourself why? Why was I spared? Only he's taken that to a high extreme, he doesn't just think he's invincible – he thinks he was… " The doctor stopped, feeling it wasn't his place to say. He knew the reason Arthur had been drummed out of the Army, but he didn't feel right telling the man's wife. This would become clear to Angela much later. "I'm telling you as his wife, so you can keep an eye out. I'm sure he'll tell you himself what happened, the truth, when he's ready. All I know Mrs. Petrelli is that your husband is sick, normal but sick. He needs help. He needs medication and counseling. It won't all go away on it's own. And then he'll see that he didn't live because he's invincible – he was just lucky. Pure human luck. And he should be happy for what he has. His life and his family. What he needs is time." He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Thank you doctor," she nodded her head.

Angela helped the doctor to the

* * *

As the doctor left the Petrelli home he passed a young man in the street. 

"Excuse me?" The blond young man asked in his British tones. "That home you just ventured out of, that wouldn't happen to be the Petrelli home would it?"

"Yes, it is." The doctor nodded his head and walked off down the sidewalk.

"Thank you, sir," said Daniel Linderman calling after him.

Linderman took the notebook that had been in his hand and set it back in his pocket. In the notebook on a single page, among many other names was written, Arthur Petrelli, New York City, NY, and next to it in Daniel Linderman's hand was the address that stood before him..

Daniel looked at the large house, smiling to himself. He would later remark to Arthur and Angela how on first sight he thought it looked like a castle. He was dressed in a suit and tie with a very nice trench coat. He looked older than he had ever looked and was a far cry from that lost traveler he had been after the war, roaming the countryside looking for a home. Daniel Linderman was still a lost soul, and he didn't trust people that was for sure, well too many people, but now Daniel Linderman had a purpose. He had a purpose and soon for a short time, he would have a home.

Daniel walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

The door opened and Angela appeared. Daniel was caught by her youth and beauty, seeing her up close for the first time. He would tell her this years later.

"I'm looking for, Arthur Petrelli –– is this the Petrelli home – I was looking for a man I fought in the war with?"

"Yes, I'm his wife," Angela felt she knew the man from somewhere, but she didn't know from what or where yet.

"Oh, forgive me, I didn't realize he had such a... young wife – is he…"

Angela still doesn't know if Daniel was trying to flatter her, or if she looked younger close up. After all Linderman had been the man in the park watching her, but she didn't realize that yet.

"Who is it Angela?" Arthur appeared in the doorway and his face grew almost white when he saw the man standing there. For weeks later Angela would simply know the man by what Arthur referred to him as, "The man who won the purple heart with me."A week after that she would finally learn his full name.

Arthur waved Angela away, and as she left the two men to chat it suddenly all dawned on her. This was the man, the blond British boy, was the man from her dream. The man who had told her he could help her. The man from the park, he was real. She was not crazy.

"Angela, I'm going for a walk. I'll be back." Arthur's voice trailed to her so fast that by the time Angela heard it the two men were gone.

Angela picked up Nathan from his play pen; Arthur must have set him there when he had followed Angela to the door. Little Nathan held an angel toy in one hand and a toy plane in the other as he made soft noises in her arms. Angela couldn't take her eyes off the door.

Holding her son, Angela slowly walked to the door and watched as the blonde man and her husband walked off toward the park.

Perhaps the help Angela has asked for had come. Perhaps, this was the man who would help her, help her to help herself. And make her dreams become real.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Adam


	5. Chapter Four : Adam

Chapter Four:

**Characters**: Adam, Linderman Angela,Arthur, (4-6 years old) Nathan, Kaito

**Notes**: Please review in all forms. It helps a writer to get feedback -- good, bad or inbetween -- detailed or not. About one thing or many.Thank you. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

1972

When Adam Monroe first entered the Petrelli home Angela wasn't sure what to make of him. He was a good looking man, that was for sure, but there was something behind his eyes. Something she couldn't place. But, there was some connection between them, something that drew her to him. Not sexual, it was just a feeling like perhaps he got them, just like Daniel Linderman, just like them all. And Angela was right, the man was like her, she just didn't know how much yet.

Angela stood at the top of the large staircase of her home about to ascend down, when she saw them enter. Daniel handed their coats to the housekeeper as Adam looked up at her. She was dressed in a black and white baby doll dress, jewels on her ears and wrists. Her long hair pulled up on top of her head, making her look years older then she was. It was only when one got closer that her face gave it all away. She looked to be still playing house.

"Who's the nymph?" Adam slyly did an aside to Daniel.

Angela pretended she hadn't heard him and started down the stairs.

"Down." Daniel cooed coming up behind him. "That's Petrelli's wife. That one... you don't get. Not if we want to be in business with Petrelli. I'd think you'd learn by now...at least after the first hundred years."

"I don't get them all," Adam told him, not taking his eyes off of Angela. "I leave you some scraps."

"Yes. And thank you for that, " Linderman said sarcastically.

Angela eyed the men as she continued walking down the stairs to greet them. She paused at the bottom for a moment to speak with her housekeeper.

Adam could see her clearer now. "The girl.." Adam's mouth was half open. "She's one of us. I thought you said it was the husband." After 300 odd years of meeting special people, Adam knew from one glance that Angela was a special woman, and even if she wasn't she still held certain "special powers," special powers even normal men couldn't resist.

"Her?" Daniel said sternly. "No, it's the husband. I'm sure of it. I got that feeling. The same feeling I got when I met you. That you told me about. I know it, it's the husband. Besides her name's not in the notebook, now is it?"

Daniel of course was referring to the notebook he got off a woman in Denver. She had befriended Daniel and tried to take his power from him, but Daniel had killed her before she could – in self defense. What was left behind was her notebook, a notebook that seemed hold a list of her future prey: a list of people with abilities. It had lead him to the Petrellis front door. It was Adam and Daniels' secret.

Adam and Daniel watched Angela approach them.

"Gentleman..." Angela nodded her head slightly.

"Angela, I would like you to meet a friend of mine, Adam Monroe. We met when I came back after the war."

Daniel smiled as Adam put out his hand.. Angela reached out her hand to shake Adam's but he took her hand and held it instead. It was intimate yet respectful making it all about Adam, while he made you feel like it was all about you.

"Pleasure." Adam smiled like a respectable young man.

"My husband will meet you in his study. It's through the living room to the left."

"Thank you," Adam said with his bedroom eyes.

Angela walked away. Adam watched her. He watched her because it was nice to see such a beautiful woman walk away, but also because of the other ideas that ran through his head.

"Wouldn't it be funny, if they both were?" Adam kept his mouth open again after he spoke. "That they just found each other, like we did..." He nodded his head and then bit in his lower lip.

"Yes, yes. Indeed." Linderman was just as intrigued. " Think of the children they'd have..." he pondered, checking Adam's eyes for his thoughts.

"Their potential could be limitless." Adam looked at his friend. He smiled and patted Daniel on the shoulder. "You've done well, my friend. Very, well."

Daniel was happy he had made his mentor proud.

For a few months Arthur, Adam and Linderman met in Arthur's study, closed doors, nothing in nothing out. Angela was very suspicious. It all seemed too secretive for her.

Angela watched the door to Arthur's study, she was able to make out the men's movements and gestures, but not their words. She straighten her gloves on her wrists and put out her hand.

"Nathan," she instructed and a four-year-old, almost five-year-old, Nathan Petrelli put his chubby little hand in his mothers grip. Angela looked down at him with a huge all knowing smile, as if the two had shared a secret. Angela and her only traveling companion these days, Nathan Petrelli, went out shopping.

**

* * *

**

Angela & Nathan Petrelli  
Manhattan

* * *

Angela carried a few bags in her left hand and Nathan's hand in her right. 

"Mama, Mama! " Nathan yelled, almost demanding. He was his mother's son.

"Nathan, we're almost home." She seemed spent and fatigued, but hardly showed it. Just her voice oozed with unhappiness. She felt a headache coming on.

"Mama, pick me up, Mama, pick me up.. " Nathan whined, stopping in his tracks and raising both his arms up.

"Oh, alright," she groaned. Angela lifted him up, but he felt so heavy in her arms she had to put him back down, "Whoa– your getting big. You're mother won't be able to—" She felt dizzy.

Angela lifted her body back up to a standing position to get some balance, but it only made her feel worse. She put her hand to her forehead. It was coming, something big was coming. Her eyes flashed white and she put her hand out for Nathan's hand, but she couldn't find it. She saw images that went right to all her senses, it was just too much, too fast, too much emotion, too much pain, flashes, flashes, Nathan, Peter, Arthur – men and women she had never seen before, cars, people, fire, rain, swords and gun play, darkness and light, her breath was labored. It was completely overwhelming. It was suffocating.

"Nathan...?" Angela questioned breathless, still unsure where her son was in all of this.

And then she hit the ground like a lead balloon, her bags and purse flying everywhere. The people around Angela stopped, all crowding around her as she lay twisted on the pavement, a black and white image stretched out like a snow angel.

Nathan watched in horror as his mother lay lifeless on the ground and there was nothing he could do about it. He was alone and he was scared. He was helpless. And as his mother would later recall, "left un protected." Strangers tried to comfort the little boy, but there was no way, even, in his silence, to do so. An older woman in a red hat tried to move Nathan away from the sight but he refuse to leave his mother's side.

"Someone call 911," yelled one of the men. And moments later sirens were heard. A man tried to revive Angela, but nothing could be done. One woman remarked her eyes looked to be fluttering like crazy, as if in a deep REM cycle, but it was quickly forgotten by the passerby.

**

* * *

**

Nathan, Angela & Arthur  
Manhattan

* * *

Little Nathan Petrelli sat in a chair in the hospital hallway. He was not yet tall enough for his feet to hit the floor and they dangled over the chair and above the surface below. He nervously swung his legs back and forth, up and down, feeling the wind between them – like he was flying. He gripped the edges of the green leather chair fingering the brass studs that held the leather in place. He looked down at the floor, at nothing really, he just didn't know what to do. All Nathan knew was that his mother was sick, but he didn't know why or how. Nathan Petrelli was alone with his thoughts and fears. It was his first real lesson in life. 

"Nathan," he heard the sound of his father's voice and the boys' face lit up.

"Daddy!" Little Nathan yelled, jumping off the chair and flying, not literally down the hallway until he landed in his father's arms.

Arthur lifted the boy up and held him in his arms. He could tell that his son was scared. Arthur didn't like that. "You okay, buddy?"

Nathan nodded his head

"Don't worry, Kid." Arthur kissed him on the forehead. "I won't let anything happen to you." He tried to get Nathan to look at him. "And what do Petrellis do when they make promises?" He waited for a response, but the boy hid his head in his father's chest. Arthur bounced the boy up, "What do they do when they make promises?"

"They keep them," Nathan said softly and put his thumb in his mouth.

"There ya go," Arthur laughed.

"Mr. Petrelli?" A doctor who had seen the scene, called to Arthur. He held a chart in his hand and wore a white lab coat.

Arthur looked at the man and his face became serious.

"Are you Mrs. Petrelli's husband?" the Doctor asked.  
"Yes, yes."Arthur walked over to the man. They shook hands. "Arthur Petrelli," he introduced himself. " How 's my wife?"

"Can I see you for a moment?" The Doctor eyed Nathan as if to say, "not with the boy."

"Yeah." Arthur put his son down. "Nathan, go back and sit down, I have to talk to this man about your mother." He pointed back toward the chair Nathan had been sitting in. Nathan lowered his head and walked back to his chair while the adults talked.

The Doctor motioned Arthur into the room across from Nathan's chair. Nathan couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could see the worried look on his father's face. The way he put his hand to his forehead and shook his head. He knew something was wrong. Little Nathan lowered his head and tried not to cry.

After Arthur talked to the doctor he went to see Angela, while Nathan still sat outside the open door. There was no one to tell Nathan it would all be alright, no adult to explain to him what was going on. All Nathan could do was wait and learn to be a man, long before his time. He listened while his parents fought inside Angela's hospital room. He found himself kicking his chair with the backs of his ankles. He found himself trying to block out the sounds.

"No, Angela, we're getting you help with him..." Arthur bellowed.

"I don't need help," she snapped.

"You passed out on the sidewalk, what if you had been crossing the street with him, what if you had dropped him.."

"I didn't drop him...he's fine." She brushed a piece of her hair away from her face and over her ear with her fingers.

"No, no, not until we know what's wrong with you..." He paced for a moment at the foot of her bed.

"Nothing is wrong with me? I'm fine. It will go away." She tossed it off, but she was putting on a front.

"The doctor said you could have epilepsy." Arthur wanted her to understand how serious this was.

"I don't–"

"Or worse--"

"We know what it is," she said softly. She looked at him with serious eyes.  
"No, no. Angela. We are not having this discussion. They are just dreams." He looked at her. " I'm worried about you. I'm worried for Nathan." He was getting more and more unhinged. "I'm worried for our son."

"Don't do this,"she pleaded.

"There is no discussion. This is Nathan's well-being we're talking about–"

"What about mine?" she demanded. " That's all I do around that house, is take care of that boy...That's all I have."

"Then you'll have a break–," he said sternly.

"He is my break!' She paused and took control of herself. " You hardly speak to me these days, Arthur --you never tell me what's going on with you, how you're feeling, you don't even _dare_ touch me anymore, not hardly ever..."

"Angela!" he scolded her and shut the door. She was talking of private things.

"That boy.." Her eyes filled with emotion. "Is all I have going for me right now. Being his mother is my only job. I'm not his mother... I can't take care of him by myself - what do I have to do with myself. I need something to do with myself. To occupy my time." There were echos of promises never fulfilled in her words. "I need some simulation, I need something to do. Something to occupy my brain. And taking care of him only does a tenth of that. Don't take that away from me."

"You'll find new things to do." He looked at her cold and hard. " This is my only son, Angela."

Angela's eyes hardened. She didn't like that sentence one bit. It seemed like an insult to her. It just reminded her how she could not give him anymore children and she felt he resented that.

Arthur didn't flinch or stop talking."We are not messing with his future. I'm doing this for your own good.. This is only because I worried about you. You'll thank me for this later, you know that." He walked toward the door. "Get dressed and I'll drive you and Nathan home."

"You're not taking your pills, I checked the pill box," she said sternly.

He paused in his tracks. "I don't need them..."

"The doctors say you do..." Angela knew her words would cut him even more than his words had her. If she was being called crazy, Angela Petrelli would fight back with the same tactics.

"I say I don't. " Arthur wouldn't look at her. "I'm not crazy." He walked toward the door, but Angela's words stopped him.  
"Something is going on with me, Arthur. I feel like you're the only person who could understand it. I have no one to talk about this. Something is happening to me. Why won't you listen to me?" she pleaded.

Arthur said nothing and walked away.

"Arthur," she yelled to him. "Don't walk away from me, like this?!"

Arthur stopped by the door, he lowered his head and wouldn't look at her. He opened the door. "Get dressed...I'll take you home."Arthur walked out of the hospital room and closed the door behind him.

Angela didn't know if it was just that men of his generation held in their emotions until it came out as anger, or that her husband was hiding something. If anything she felt frightened and ignored. It would not be the last time she would feel that way.

Arthur closed the door behind him and stood for a moment. Nathan watched as he saw his father deflated with fatigue.

"Arthur?" Daniel Linderman called down the hallway as he just about reached his friend."Is she alright, Arthur? Angela... I came as soon as I heard. I went to see you and your housekeeper told me what happened? Is Nathan alright? He leaned in and whispered. " Do you_ need _me for anything?" he insinuated. "Can I help?"

"No, no. We're fine. She's fine." He looked around and pulled Linderman over toward the opposite wall for privacy. Arthur looked around again before speaking in a hushed tone. "Don't you think that's something to not just pull out all the time – people will get suspicious."

Nathan could hear their conversation, but he had noidea what it was really about. At that age, at that moment in his life, there was no way he could.

"What do they think is wrong?" Daniel asked softly.

"She's having these flashes of light sometimes -- when it happens, so the doctors think maybe--"

"Epilepsy. Could be, yes." His medical training came in handy most of the time. "It could be... I'm sorry to say cancer, it could be migraines, it could be nothing..."

"Yes... but..." Arthur almost grumbled.

"But what?" Daniel could see Arthur had a thought that he or the doctors weren't mentioning.

Arthur seemed reluctant.  
"You've told me so much already, Arthur. You know you can trust me. Is it those dreams? Is she having them again?"

" I don't know what to make of it, anymore." Angela was right, Arthur was extremely concerned that his wife was going crazy. And what that meant for him and what that meant for his son. " When she was a kid, it was cute, an idle girls dreaming, wishes–but now... I don't know. I'm afraid to leave her alone with Nathan, what if she gets worse, he needs a mother – a mother who isn't... two parents who aren't..."

"Losing their minds?" Linderman looked at Arthur pointedly.

"They think she's having diabetic seizures because she's... seeing things, but her blood sugar is normal." His eyes darted off.

"What if they were more, Arthur?

"More?" He took Linderman's gaze.

"What if she was one of us..."

"What ?" Arthur pulled away from Daniel

"It's possible. You said some of the things she said came true..."

"No. No." He shook it off defensively.

"If she can tell the future, think of the good we could do. The things we could stop."

"No. She is not like us." He didn't want his wife pulled into this. " She's been wrong more times than... no, no..We are not having this discussion. No." He shook his head for a moment. " Don't you ever bring this up with me again. " He turned to Nathan and then back at Daniel.. "I need to sign her out..." He turned to his son again. "Nathan, come. "

Nathan ran to his father and Arthur pulled him up into his arms and they walked away.

Arthur Petrelli made sure that Angela was never alone with Nathan and they all got use to having a nanny around. Angela would shop and she joined museum boards, hosted dinner parties, tried anything she could do with her smart brain that her social status could acquire. It was all things she had done before, she just had more time to do them. And part of her really liked it, she felt independent and strong. People listened to her and it felt good. But her favorite part of the day was when she could come home at night to her family.  
**

* * *

**

Early 1973

* * *

Angela hadn't passed out in four months and her visions, still frightening as they were, were now relegated to when she slept at night. So for now, sometimes Arthur let her send the nanny home early, as long as he was in the house, leaving her some alone time with her son. And although she felt like her life needed to have some greater purpose, she was resigned to living her life with Nathan and a husband she was growing further and further away from. This was her life now. This was her future. She had no one to make her feel alive again. No one to remind her what it felt like to be loved. Angela Petrelli was alone, she felt lost. She was only twenty-seven-years old.

Angela walked down the street her arms filled with her day of shopping, her hair pulled up and her huge sunglasses firmly planted on the top of her head. She was the well dressed gal of 1973.

Suddenly Angela was bumped from the side. "Oh excuse me " said the man with the Asian accent Angela didn't recognize, as he bumped her and sent her bags flying. "I am so sorry, " she heard him say in his melodious tones. He reached down to help Angela with her things, as she crouched down herself to do the same.

"Thank you really, I'm fine." She looked the man in the face for the first time. He had fine refined Japanese features, about ten years older than Angela and very well dressed. He was a man of means; a man that looked good in a suit.

When their eyes met she felt like they had met before, but she wasn't sure where. She decided not to mention it. Maybe she had seen him in a dream and how would she explain that. All she knew was that she felt something in the pit of her stomach, like something had brought them together. It was the same feeling she got when she met Adam, and Linderman and even her husband.. What could it be? She was confused and Angela had to look away for a moment. She collected the last of her things and they both stood.

"I am sorry. " The man's eyes glowed. "I should be more careful when I walk."

"It's quite alright... really..."Angela took in a deep breath. They stood in silence for a moment. He must have been caught by her as well, she thought.

Finally he spoke. "Perhaps, I may buy you a coffee to express my apologies."

"I'm sorry, I have to..." She seemed distracted by him. "I have to get home to my son..." She turned toward her car, a long black deluxe car with a driver as she took her sunglasses off her head and placed them on her face.

Angela stepped into the car, her long legs showing off her figure as she sat and crossed her legs.  
"Thank you, " she said behind large bug eyed glasses, dressed in the finest colors Pucci and Chanel had to offer.

"Good day," he said.

And Angela shut the door.

And when the car drove off the two of them couldn't help but feel something had happened, they just didn't know what. He told her later how he had felt at that moment and she told him that she felt that way too.

Angela blew into her bedroom with five shopping bags on each arm.

Mrs. Petrelli," asked the housekeeper who had been filling in for the Nanny that day, do you need help with those.

"Oh, no I'm fine. Is my son around?." Angela looked toward the door and there was her son, Nathan, just newly six-years-old

Angela's eyes widened. "Come here, my little man " she sang to him. "I got you some new clothes..." She pulled out a sweater. "And Mommy got a few things too." That was an understatement.

"Will you be needing me for anything..." The housekeeper asked.

"No, no. I'm in for the night. I can take care of him. Go."

The Housekeeper looked at Angela, knowing full well that she had been left alone too many times with Nathan for the week and Arthur would be upset, but Angela gave the housekeeper a stern look back as Angela took her gloves off.

The housekeeper nodded her head and exited the room as Angela looked in her bags for Nathan's clothes.

"Can I play basketball in the park?"

"Alone?" she laughed. "No, go finish your homework.." She kissed Nathan on the forehead and rustled his hair. "I said go." Angela and Arthur felt Nathan was gifted and had already enrolled him in a very exclusive and progressive primary school.

Nathan stood there and said nothing.  
Angela leaned down to his level. "Nathan Petrelli, here is some sound advice from your mother." she laid her hand on his chest for a moment, before angling her head at him. "Smart men accomplish more in a day than most men with half their brain power will do in years of living. If you want to accomplish anything in this world, Nathan, you need to be the smartest one in your class. You have to be number one. To be special. If you want to be special in this world you need to work at it. No one's going to hand you the world on a silver platter, now go " And she pointed toward the door. "Go."

Nathan walked out and his mother called after him. "When you're done, come back here and we'll try on your new clothes." She folded Nathan's little clothes and set them aside on her bed.

"Angela?" a man's British accent asked politely near the door.

Angela turned, startled to see Adam Monroe standing in her bedroom archway.

"You frighten me. For god's sake." Then it dawned on her a man who was not her husband was now standing in her bedroom. " How did you get in here?"

"Your housekeeper downstairs. I hope you don't mind." He was awfully gentlemanly. She should have known, too much so.

"No. No. Of course not. " She tried to be polite but she didn't like it. "My husband isn't home, Mr. Monroe."

"I know..." He walked closer to her. "I'm not here to see Arthur, Angela. I'm here to see you..." He motioned his head toward her.

"What ever for..." She tossed her head and began taking her purchases out of their respective shopping bags. "I'm just a housewife," she said with much disgust, for she didn't believe it for one moment, but it was what she was. Her granddaughter would say something similar more than thirty years later, and not truly mean it either.

The next thing she knew Angela found Adam lightly taking her wrist with the most tender of touches, causing her to turn toward him. She was startled at first, but when she caught his eyes she saw that look again. It was as compelling as his words.

"I think I can help you, Angela," he said reassuringly.

"How?" She was very skeptical.

"Tell me about your dreams, Angela." His eyes had this look of understanding.

"How do you know about those..." She was caught off guard and she felt like a child for a moment.

"You're not the only one, Angela."  
"You? You can...?" her voice was soft and husky.

"No, not me. But, I once knew a woman who could do what you could do. But we are both special Angela. You, me, Daniel, your husband."

"I'm not special..." She really seemed to believe that.

"Tell me about your dreams, Angela..." he repeated again sweetly. "I'm here to listen..."

"You want to hear about my dreams?" She didn't believe him.

"Is that so shocking?"

"No one... has ever— I mean to say – no one has ever asked me, no one ever wanted too.." Her eyes filled with tears. "Not, even Arthur–"

"No one has ever believed you?

"No," she said softly. "No." She shook her head.

"You wondered if maybe you were crazy?"

Her head bobbed as she held in her tears. "Yes."

"It's okay. It's okay." He swept a strand of her hair away from her face and behind her ear. "I know what it's like, Angela," he said in his soft kind whisper. "You're confused --unsure -- you don't know what's happening to you. How old were you Angela?"

"I was sixteen..."

"That's too young to see what you see."

"Sometimes, I can't take it and I pass out from the strain..." Her eyes were pools of water.

"I can help you. We can all help each other."

"We...?" The tears slowly started to fall down her face.

"People like us. I know you're frightened, I know you're confused."

"They won't let me take care of my son..." her voice was a faint whisper.

"We can change that. You can control you power and not let it control you. Use it for good."  
"My power?"

"The world does not yet know what we are capable of, Angela. Let me show you what you are capable of. Together we can do so much. Let us help you?"

Angela nodded her head and swallowed down her emotion as much as she could, but it was still visible.

All this time Adam had been lightly stoking the inside of her wrist making her feel calm and cool. She so wanted to be helped, she so wanted someone to believe in her.

"I have to show you something..." Adam walked over to Angela's night stand and took a letter opener off of it. But, Angela already knew. She hadn't known she did, how could she have thought such things were real, but her visions had already shown her everything.

That night Arthur found his wife crying on their bed among the shopping bags she had never put away. He ran to her asking her what was going on. They knelt on the bed together as he held her in his arms and asked her over and over again what had happened, until finally she spoke.

"I have something to tell you..."she cried, hugging him and whispering into his ear, "I thought – I thought you'd call me crazy. I didn't want to tell you...," she sobbed..

"What? What?

"I know, ' she cried out.

"Angela, I don't understand--?"he pleaded in concern.

"I know about Linderman. I know you're not crazy." She hugged him tightly, almost for dear life. " I always knew. In my dreams. I didn't think it was true, but I.. I.." She took a gulp. "Linderman...I saw him heal you..."

Arthur knew there was no other way that she could have known that.

"I know, I know it all. Because I saw it, I saw it. It's real, Arthur. This is really happening... I really know it now. And I know you do too."

Arthur was shocked, but he knew it was the truth. Daniel Linderman could heal others and he had healed Arthur. That was how Arthur had lived through the war. It would also be how Arthur would live through the next thirty years. It was the reason Arthur had been drummed out of the army, it was the reason he had been called delusional by the doctors, why he felt ignored and abandoned. Just like Angela had. And it was now the only way he believed everything his wife had been telling him: she could see the future. He had to finally come to terms that Angela was in the same boat as he was – she was one of them.

Arthur's eyes began to tear. "I.. I have something I have to tell you too.."

Angela smiled through her tears and ran her hands over the sides of Arthur's face. "It's okay...," she wailed."It's alright. I know. I know..."She nodded her head.

"You know?" he was shocked, but almost relived.

She nodded her head. He leaned his head into hers and for the first time in his life Arthur Petrelli really cried.

It was like a burden had been lifted off both of their shoulders. They were finally able to share their secret with each other and unlike most people when they are in that first blush of discovery, of power, they had each other to go through it with.

They were all finding each other. And Angela Petrelli now made four.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: More people with abilities are drawn into the fold and "find" each other. Angela meets a familiar face in the park


	6. Chapter Five : Charles & Kaito

Chapter Five

**Characters:** Adam, Linderman, Kaito, Angela, Arthur (Six years old) Nathan, Charles, & Maury

**Notes**: Please review, good or bad. Reviews help the writer. Special thanks to _JuneSEA_ for all her help and my new beta _Anoymouse13_

* * *

**1974**

_Two months after Richard Nixon resigns due to the Watergate scandal _

* * *

Now that Nathan was in school, Angela spent more and more time outside of the home. She had no reason to stay in the house all day, especially with her husband at work. During the day Angela's home was only silent and empty. Arthur was officially a lawyer now working his way up in the world. It was only at night, when Angela and her husband met with Adam, Daniel, and their new-found friends Carlos Mendez and Maury Parkman, that Angela felt any sense of worth. Adam told them all how they belonged together and Angela believed it. They could do great things, Adam told them. Angela finally would have a purpose in her life. This was what she had been waiting for.

It was a beautiful crisp fall day in New York City. Angela decided to sit in the park by the large, Bethesda Fountain, with the famous _Angel of the Water_ statue at the center. It was only blocks from her house, and sometimes on the weekends Angela would watch Nathan and Arthur take in the toy sail boats along the water, while she sat on a bench by the ramble.

But today Angela wasn't watching. Today, Angela felt like she was doing, that she indeed had a purpose, as she started what was becoming a daily ritual -- sitting in the park and writing down her dreams in a small black notebook. The notebook was a gift from Adam, her name embossed on the front leather: Angela.

"Write everything down," he told her. "No matter how small the detail. It must all be interpreted." And he would sit with her, pushing on an episode through stress and fatigue.

"Fight it, " Adam shouted at her.

"I can't," she would plead. "I'm trying."

"You must! " he would yell in her ear. "This will not control you Angela, you will control it. Control it! When this happens again, you will fight it, you will not succumb to it. Fight it, Angela!"

And after only a few sessions, and a few months, Angela was able to hold it all in. She was even at the point that if you didn't know her secret, one wouldn't know what was going on.

One time at a party, Angela was fighting it, and Daniel knew it. He didn't see Arthur around and in the middle of a toast, while the crowd watched the man of honor, Daniel nonchalantly took Angela's hand in his for her to squeeze tightly. And when it was all over a lone tear fell down her cheek. No one was the wiser. They all helped each other in different ways back then. They were all finding each other in a world where they felt alone – coming together for what they were now calling, "a greater good."

* * *

Maury Parkman kept crossing paths with Arthur Petrelli that year, and although complete opposites – Arthur an ivy-league lawyer from the east side and Maury a gregarious, Jewish-born Brooklyn boy - they made a connection and soon Maury was brought into the fold. Maury Parkman was a shy man who hid behind his bravado. He was a man who wanted to be liked. Liked so much he tried too hard and it was the first thing Angela noticed about him -- she did not like him. She didn't hate him, or distrust him, yet – she just did not care for his company as much as she cared for others in the group. Maury made off-color jokes in Angela's presence and had a penchant for flashy suits and rich food. He was new to money; he was a con man in the making.

But, she knew Maury could be a kind man, a knowledgeable man, but he had his demons and she understood that. He had been forced, according to his words, to leave his wife and young son because of his power. He was the first person Angela met whose power wielded consequences of another kind -- the kind that knocked about one's soul. It would soon become commonplace to the Petrellis.

But, now was the golden age and the cares were nil, at least compared to what they would become, or perhaps it was all just a good show. Perhaps they were already lost.

Angela was amazed how Adam worked with Maury.

"There is no reason why," Adam would say gleefully. "That if he can go into the mind -- he can control it. Senses, thoughts, your dreams, your nightmares."

And Adam was right; it was not very hard for Maury. It was as if all Maury needed was the idea that he could do more, and his ability became what Adam would call, "impressive."

What it did do was make Maury almost as powerful as Arthur, but Maury never felt he was looked upon with the same high regard in this group of special people – and that would be his downfall. For power wasn't just something wielded in one's own mind, it is wielded in the mind of others. Many would say it was all in Maury's head, but Maury knew otherwise. Thinking you're paranoid is one kind of blow to the self esteem, but knowing you're not is another.

Carlos Mendez, on the other hand, was a man of very little words. He never liked the decadence of the 1970s, and although he liked hard living, he was never the Studio 54 type; too much disco, glitter and pretension for his taste. He had a penchant for European hand-rolled cigarettes, many glasses of scotch and good looking women. He grew tried of the day to day drudgery of life, and although he did not yet have children, Carlos yearned to have something he could pass down to the next generation. The only thing Carlos Mendez would pass down to the next generation would be his artistic tendencies, addiction and a mutated gene for abilities.

* * *

Angela, deep in thought, sitting in the park, wrote her previous night's adventures in her notebook as if there was no one else around, sitting in the shadow of the angel. Angela had no idea the significance of where she sat. She had no idea it was the same spot that only moments after arriving at the Petrellis front door, Daniel Linderman and her husband had shaken hands and agreed on a partnership. A partnership that would change her and her children's lives forever. It would change the course of history.

What Angela did know about the statue was its history -- that the _Angel of the Water_, coming from the Gospel of Saint John, Chapter Five, was the angel that bestowed healing powers on the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. She did not know how the angel would be significant in her own life. How could she? She didn't see everything.

As Angela sat, in between thoughts, she found herself drawing small godsend symbols in the margins of her notebook. When the symbol was revealed to Angela and the group three months after the fact as a pre-cog she thought nothing of it – she figured she had seen it in a dream. She should have thought otherwise. For Angela was wrong; she had not seen the symbol in a dream. Angela would soon learn the symbol was just another thing that connected them all, it was older than her and older than Adam, it was somehow a part of them.

Suddenly, a wind swept through the park knocking Angela's notebook closed as she struggled to keep her place.

"So, we meet again, " came that all too familiar voice of the man with the Japanese accent.

Angela could now guess where the man was from, if his face did not give it away. She quickly closed her notebook and set it next to her, almost hiding it with her coat and purse. Angela smiled up at the man telling him silently that she remembered him.

"It seems something is bringing us together, isn't it?" His voice had a sense of music to it.

"It would seem so..."

"May I?" he asked.

Angela nodded her head as if to say, "It's a free park." The man sat down next to her.

"I never introduced myself." He set out his hand. "Kaito Nakamura."

"Kato... ?" she tried to repeat his name.

"Kaito," he corrected her. He had a kind way about him.

"Angela Petrelli," she gave him her gloved hand. "Angela..."

He smiled and looked up at the statue. "Angela ... like the angel ..." He motioned his head toward the bronze statue in front of them.

Angela laughed, "Well, I don't think my mother named me because she thought I was an angel. Not by any means."

"Angels see all. They keep guard over loved ones. Do you do that Angela? Then you are an angel to someone."

"We are all angels and devils Mr. Nakamura. No one is immune to the world's traps."

"Very true." He looked at the statue."I came to see the angel. I was told it was a beautiful sight to see – I have been reading about it- this is my first time to New York City." He looked at Angela. "And if I may be so bold. I think they have directed me to the wrong angel." He smiled slyly.

Angela looked at him with a half grin for a moment before speaking."You are very direct, Mr. Nakamura."

"Directness, I feel, is the only way to get business done. Otherwise, time is wasted. And time is a very precious thing, it should not be fooled with." He looked over at the statue and pointed to the three cherubs that stood below the angel, on a second level to the fountain, just above the base that lead into the pool of water underneath.

"I'm told the smaller statues – they also have meaning..."

Angela pointed to the statues as she spoke, "Temperance, Purity, Health, and..."

"Peace, " they both said together. Angela looked at Kaito as if she felt she had been tricked.

"I remember now." He raised his eyebrow at her.

"Do you now?" she smirked. Angela sure liked the attention, but she told herself it was all harmless banter.

"And which one are you, Angela?" Kaito asked in his deepest voice. He leaned closer to her. "Are you temperance, purity... health or peace?"

Angela smirked, about to answer.

Suddenly another Japanese man, taller than Kaito, appeared taking Kaito's attention from Angela. This caused Angela to also turn and look at the man as he approached. The man in front of them nodded his head at Kaito, but said nothing.

"I am sorry, I must go." Kaito stood and adjusted his coat. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his business card. "I do not know many people in New York. I am here on business."

Kaito handed Angela his card and she took it between her gloved fingers.

"If you would ever like to finish this conversation. I will be in town for four weeks. Please feel free to call me. It would be my pleasure." He bowed his head and Angela slightly bowed hers in response.

Angela wasn't sure what to think -- but as she watched Kaito walk away she looked down at the card and had a strong desire not to throw it away.

* * *

That night Angela had a dream, a dream she wasn't sure was of the future or merely just a dream.

Angela had learned to go through life without a lot of sleep. Nathan remembers as a child waking up and hearing his mother downstairs at all hours, busying herself with things and projects, mostly reading. Sometimes she would just sit alone in the living room, silent and stoic, looking off into nothingness.

Most people see dreams and sleep as a solace at the end of the day; Angela Petrelli did not. And she tried to live a life with as little sleep as she could. But this dream was not frightening in any way, except one. The man she saw herself with, romantically, in this dream, was not her husband, but the man she met in the park. Angela woke up with a pop, waking Arthur in the process. He of course questioned what she had seen.

"It's nothing, " she told him and ushered him back to sleep. Angela turned her head from Arthur and smiled. Perhaps it was just a dream.

And the next week when she found his card in her purse, she told herself it was not the future, but only a harmless human dream. And she told herself there would be no harm in meeting the man for coffee. There was no harm in having a friend, she didn't have to act on anything.

* * *

Kaito Nakamura was a charming man. He smiled and laughed in a very good, very mannered way and spoke in a semi-broken English. In fact, he spoke English better then Angela thought she spoke French, and for sure better than she spoke Japanese. He paid her attention and she liked that. He was smart and knew much of the world. And he thought she was funny. They talked about their travels, places they had been, the political climate and thoughts of the world in general. They did not always agree, but their position on the world seemed the same, something had to be done, something had to be left to the next generation. Still she loved the debate, she loved having normal adult conversation with a man who didn't see her as the name attached to the other end of a check: Mrs. Arthur Petrelli.

By the time the check came, Kaito was enamored with the dark-haired beauty, her passion and forcefulness, her intelligence and her eyes. He felt connected to this woman in a way he had never felt with another person.

When Angela first sat down at the table he knew she was married, finally seeing that huge ring on her finger, now that she wasn't wearing gloves. Angela had purposely left her gloves off this time. But that didn't mean Kaito couldn't have a delightful dinner companion. That was what he told himself, that was what they both told themselves.

But, in that moment Angela looked over at Kaito, the nice suits, the way he treated her, the way he smelled and she had this awful urge to kiss him. She sprang up, almost knocking over her coffee.

"Angela. " Kaito spoke loudly and surprised as she stood. "Are you alright?" He stood himself.

"I have to go. I can't... I'm sorry. Kaito. I thought. I thought I could do this, but I can't. I can't be here with you." She grabbed her purse and pushed her way behind her chair in the crowded New York City restaurant. "I'm a married woman..." she said in a soft rasp. She tried to leave and Kaito grabbed her arm lightly.

"Angela. There is nothing wrong with two people – two friends sitting and talking. That is all this is... companionship."

She looked at him with wanton eyes. Angela leaned in and whispered in Kaito's ear, "But, I want more," she trilled. "I thought I could. But, I can't. I'm sorry. We both know why we're here." She lifted her head away from Kaito's ear and looked at him.

Kaito nodded his head, understanding, and he let Angela walk out of the restaurant.

* * *

That night Angela arrived home to be informed that Daniel had found three new people to join the cause. Charles Deveaux arrived first. He was a tall, handsome black man about Arthur's age. He wore a brown leather jacket and had more confidence in his eyes than Angela had ever seen -- Angela liked him instantly. He would soon become one of her closest friends. There was something about Charles that made one want to open up to him, ask him for advice. It was like his heart was a part of his skin and he felt deeply. He was Angela's perfect confidante. They would get into debates and she would always listen to what he had to say, until the day he died, but when she had her mind set on something it was hard to sway her. In the end, Angela and Charles had lived different lives. She was a rich white woman born into privilege, while Charles had grown up a semi-middle class black man, drafted into the army and had pulled himself up by his boot straps; made a name for himself. But, Charles never treated Angela any different than anyone else and she never did the same to him. They may have both been from different worlds, but they had both been through pain. And pain is what really connects us all. Charles would take Angela to her first live Jazz show and introduce her to his friend Richard Drucker, but that was later, much later.

The second to arrive was Suzanne Ammaw, a waft of a thing, she looked like she might blow away. Her blonde hair was cut short, making her look like Mia Farrow or Goldie Hawn. She wore sandals and had a huge smile on her face all the time. She knew her effect on men and she seemed to know it since birth - she was a girl who knew how to have fun. She was young, younger than Angela by two years, and she almost skipped around the room like a little girl, but she did not have the brain of a child. You knew she was smart, in fact she was a genius, beyond the fact that she was one of the special people – she was a groovy chick. She was French and hailed from the Ivory Coast.

Finally the third person, a man, was expected and was introduced to the group. And no one was more surprised than Angela Petrelli when the man who walked into her house was Kaito Nakamura. They never talked about that day at the restaurant for years, but at that moment it became an unwritten, unspoken thought that they would have to be friends and they would make it work.

"We can change the world, we can fix it..." Adam said lifting his glass to toast with his new band of merry mates. "We belong together. Together we can do great things." And they all clinked glasses. Kaito Nakamura now made nine.

* * *

The sound of Stevie Wonder singing, that's what Nathan remembers. He remembers it from when he was young. Wafting up from the living room to his spot on the landing where he would hide, wanting to be part of the action, wanting to be down with the adults. It's a distant memory of when his parents were young. When they had small intimate get-togethers with friends, most of which Nathan can hardly remember because the parties stopped shortly before the age of true vivid memory. When the secrets started, and never ended.

Too young to understand what was really going on downstairs, Nathan does remember the laugher, the smoke, the clinking of glasses, the intense conversations between arms and legs as he tried to see the faces with out giving himself away. But, what Nathan would most take notice of, in the farthest distance of the room, the one image he could see, was that of his parents. And he remembers it the most because it was the only memory of his childhood that he can remember seeing both of his parents happy, and at the same time. He just remembers them having a good time. It seemed like such fun and young Nathan yearned to grow up so he could be just like them - he had no idea how prophetic that wish was.

* * *

The one thing Angela Petrelli loved to do was dance. And in the early days when the group got together, outcasts who had finally found each other, when all work was done, they had fun. Before they all got caught up in it, before they were all drunk with power, it all had to start somewhere. It was the 1970s and Angela and her friends were the "me" generation, the peace and love generation looking for answers – trying not to get jaded and yearning for a better world. They were the baby boomers searching for some light at the start of terrible times. They had optimism. They were young. They didn't know any better.

They sat around, like most people their age, smoking, drinking, having heated and powerful discussions, but for them it wasn't just talk, it was talk that would lead to action. They would soon become the decision-makers – they would learn what power felt like, and they would like it. The room dripped with possibilities.

Sometimes when Angela thinks back on that time in her life, after the grey film of disgust leaves her consciences, all she seems to remember is the music. The sounds of Stevie Wonder, or Elton John, mixed with a haze of smoke and laughter. She never looked back on it all with nostalgia, like the men did, to her it was a time that only led to disappointment and heartache. Angela Petrelli looked to the future, her present and past was of no concern. And although she can't even bear to remember how deluded and fresh-faced she had been, she does remembered that she sure liked how the music sounded and how it drew her in.

Arthur sat with the boys, looking at his wife dance to the music and enjoying herself. It would soon become a rare sight. He smirked and grinned because she was his. They weren't perfect, but they had each other. Made for each other in so many ways they had not yet discovered. Perfect fits and perfect companions for a life ahead, in the good and bad, in sickness and in health, love and disgust – together they would be tested. For marriage was not made for madness. But, that was what comes next, this was now – the precipice of gluttony.

Charles eyed Arthur looking at his wife. "That's a mighty handsome woman you have there." He said jokingly, putting his hand on Arthur's shoulder, a cigarette hanging between his thin fingers and a stiff glass of bourbon.  
Arthur noticed that all the men in room were looking at Angela and he liked it. He couldn't take his eyes off of Angela, because he felt like no one else could. Arthur had what they all seemed to want and he enjoyed that. He liked how it made him feel – he liked the power.

"Excuse me, gentleman. " Arthur raised his eyes at the men and rose to his feet to join his wife on the dance floor.

Looking at Arthur Petrelli, it was not hard to guess he was a man women wanted to be with and other men envied – this group wasn't any different. To them Adam and Arthur became their football stars. Adam was wise and open to helping them find themselves. And Arthur wielded so much power, wielded so much charisma; he was handsome, smart, took no prisoners, successful, had the gorgeous wife and perfect family. Arthur Petrelli was the American dream, decked out with Italian good looks, a charming smile and soulful eyes. But, as Arthur would say about others," looks can be deceiving, " and his life with Angela and Nathan was far from perfect. It was just deceiving, and it would be forever more so.

They were a couple that looked good together, they were a couple that danced well together, they looked ideal. But looks show nothing that is beyond the surface. It is nothing but a barrier to the truth. The Petrellis were not perfect and far from happy. The happiness in the moment was genuine, but it was always fleeting when reality set in.

The men still couldn't take their eyes off Angela.

"If only beauty like that could save the world, " Maury joked, not yet with cynicism in his voice. He took a swig of his beer.

Adam eyed what the men where looking at, Angela, and glared in her direction. "I'm sure that's what they said about Helen of Troy."

And Adam inhaled slowly on his imported cigarette and ever so slowly let the smoke waft off his lips and spill into the air. After almost four hundred years of life, Adam Monroe did not trust women very much.

The grass is always greener on the other side of someone's fence when you've never set foot on their lawn. And Daniel Linderman looked on watching off in the background and he knew that one day he would be as rich and powerful as Arthur. That one day he too would have it all, or at least look like he did. And Adam would help him, they would all help each other. He would finally have people he could trust. Together they would save the world. No matter what the cost.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Tension mounts. Temptations rear their ugly head. The madness takes hold. And The company is formed.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

**Characters**: Adam, Charles, Kaito, Arthur, Angela Nathan (8yr), Victoria, Linderman, Maury, Bob ( and the rest of the 12) A reference to a character from the graphic novel.

**Notes:** Reviews good or bad help the writer, thank you. (updated with typo errors changed 3.29.08)

* * *

**Charles's Apartment**

_1975_

* * *

Next they met Harrison, "call me Harry," Fletcher. Charles ran into him in a jazz club, then a walk in the park or shopping in the same stores. What they all didn't know was that Harry had already crossed paths, ten years before, with Arthur and Angela on their honeymoon. Harry had briefly asked the Petrellis for directions. There was no way either of them could have remembered it. Harry wasn't from New York, but he said he had always felt drawn to the city his entire life. He was a very tall man with light brown hair and easy eyes. He hadn't told anyone of his ability until he met Charles. An ability Harry had discovered at a very young age – younger than anyone else in the group. He had joined the peace corp right out of college, but had moved back to the states shortly after. Harry was a man who gave a firm, strong handshake.

When Harry met Charles he told him, "We all thought we could change the world, but then they shot Kennedy." He was a happy-go-lucky guy who secretly longed for hope.

Harry was the one who met Bob first. Harry kept running into him at an underground card game. "The man never seemed to run out of money," Harry remarked. But it was Linderman who first saw what Bob could do – who took the boy into the fold. And Bob was only a boy, the youngest of the group, out ranking Angela and Suzanne. Now it was time for Bob to show his worthiness – what he was capable of.

Robert Bishop stood in the middle of Charles living room; his home had become a meeting place of sorts, for the group was now in their "official" second year of "healing the world." Usually they all met on Charles rooftop, but a chill was starting to enter the air. It was beginning to become too cold to meet outside for long periods of time, so they had all ventured indoors for this particular get together.

The group watched as Bob took a small flowerpot and placed it on an end table he had already moved to the center of the room.

"Now, this is a trick, look at this one..." Daniel cooed. "It's quite brilliant," he spoke with authority. Linderman stood in the doorway of the room."Which we know from me, is a lot." He smirked with the confidence that being one of the group had provided him. He had grown a lot in the few years since Arthur first met him, even since the war had ended. Yet, Daniel had leagues to go toward the man he would one day become.

The group laughed at Linderman's remark in pockets of noise that ebbed and flowed like music. They all enjoyed each other's company. Charles stood while Adam sat on the couch with Suzanne's bare feet on his legs. Maury lounged in a chair next to them. Harry sat on a desk in the corner, smoking a cigarette with Angela sitting on a chair in front of him, her legs crossed under her stylish red dress. Harry leaned forward, putting his arm on Angela's shoulder. All of them were friends, they were all close. It was a welcome friendly gesture.

"Well, if Danny says it's brilliant." Harry leaned back and kept his arm on Angela's shoulder. This I gotta see."Daniel hated to be called Danny and Harry just loved ribbing him.

Robert Bishop looked nervous. He had a full head of hair back then and already wore his signature glasses. Bob took hold of the pot with his left hand and slowly, but effectively, turned the flower pot into gold. Daniel was right, it was a sight to see.

"Oh... Well, look at thatཀ" Harry started to applaud. "Bravo, old boy. Bravo," he joked in a fake British accent, his cigarette falling out of the side of his mouth as he spoke."Bloody brilliant."

"Is that it?" Angela spoke up. "Is that all he can do?" She had a morose flat tone to her voice.

The group laughed.

Arthur tried not to laugh himself as he walked out of the shadows, where he had been watching the proceedings. "What my wife is trying to say is, she's not impressed..." He smiled with a glint in his eye.

"Little impresses, dear Angela..." Adam cooed.

Suzanne angled her head toward Bob. "Don't let it sway you, she's seen a lot...sees the future. Kind of hard to trump that one." She looked at Angela. "I kid, my love. I kid."

"He's a damn, mint - I say that's impressive," Daniel spoke up.

Angela stood. "I'm not saying it's not impressive. But, it's a parlor trick." She crossed toward Daniel and addressed the group. She played with her bracelet for a moment, looking quite disinterested.

"Don't worry, " Maury quipped. "She said that about me when I first came in, but all I could do was read minds... Then... He smirked and Suzanne let out a loud chuckle.

"So, I ask you, what else can you do?" Angela sat back down in the chair she had been previously sitting in. "Harry, please get that cigarette out of my face, the smell is getting in my hair." She moved her head slightly and slid a thin piece of hair behind her ear.

"Touchy, Touchy..." He kissed her on the cheek and walked away.

Angela took Harry's hand as he passed her and squeezed it to show she meant no harm.

Harry walked backwards for a moment and looked at Angela. " I tell ya, Angela, the more confidence you get the more attractive I find you," he told her in a cheeky manner. He then pretended to growl in Angela's direction. "Susy, come and sit on my lap." He sat down on a stool next to Charles and patted his leg.

"No. Suzanne said flatly with an arch to her eyebrow.

"And here I thought it would work this time," he remarked sarcastically. Harry crossed his legs and took a drag off his cigarette.

"Let the man finish his presentation," Charles threw in. "We'd all want the same courtesy given to us."

"I agree." Adam nodded his head. "But, Angela is right, what else do you do, Mr. Bishop? Just out of curiosity – because that talent sir, believe me we can find a use for... I'm sure of it." He grinned his huge smile. Adam ran his hand along Suzanne's leg as she started a cigarette for him.

Bob looked at Adam and put his finger up, as if to say one moment, and walked over to Angela. "May I?" He reached toward her shoe.

Adam took a cigarette from Suzanne while never taking his eyes off Bob.

"Oh, Angela. I get it," exclaimed Harry. "He's gonna turn your shoe into a pumpkin...bloody brilliant. Bloody brilliant. Gold and vegetation. This kid's going places." He rubbed his thumb against his index finger, sending cigarette ashes to the ground.

"Oh, Harry just shut up..." Oscar Mendez spoke up in his Spanish accent. "You're driving us all insane. Please!"

"It's not my fault you still have a hangover." Harry grinned and took another drag off his cigarette.

Angela, a little bewildered, stood and took off her shoe. She handed her shoe to Bob, but instead of taking it, Bob asked Angela to hold the shoe in front of her with both hands. Angela wasn't sure what was going on, until within moments, the shoe became as heavy as a rock, causing Angela's hands to fall as low as her waist – Bob had turned her shoe into lead.

"That was a pair of four hundred dollar shoes," Angela said crossly..

"That's unfortunate for you," Bob smiled impishly.

And the group cracked up as spurts of laughing emanated from the lot of them.

"Oh...," Arthur laughed. "He's one of us for sure."

Everyone laughed except for Angela. But, it was very funny. Angela just couldn't see the humor in it. Not at her own expense.

The last three people who joined the group came into the fold very quickly after each other. There was Charles' college friend Richard Drucker who kept mostly to himself; he was a shy man who seemed to like electronics more than people. He hardly came to meetings and was never really considered a main part of the group – by 1977 he was gone for good.. There was the woman that Angela, Charles, Kaito and Arthur each had run into on several separate occasions, but who Suzanne brought into the fold – her name was Paula Gramble. Paula was a slender woman with skin the color of dark caramel. She was wary of the group at first, but soon found herself at home after only weeks of knowing them.

The day Paula was introduced to the group, that lovely spring day, she walked onto the roof dressed in a female version of a man's suit, a vest, a tie and long bell bottom pants. She took off her large brimmed sun hat as she entered the doorframe causing everyone to turn toward her as she made her entrance.

"This is Paula Gramble...," Adam introduced her. "For those who haven't met her. Paula has a gift for us..."

Paula grinned largely at them. "I think I'd love to see what you all can do first," she said with a gleeful forcefulness. "Show me yours and I'll show you mine."

Victoria was the last to enter the group. She met Kaito first at a lecture hall, even though they were both there for different lectures. Somehow they had still found each other. What were the odds of that? But, by now so called coincidences, fate and destiny was not something the group took lightly – it all had a universal purpose. Kaito and Victoria ran into each other outside of the lecture hall – she was a scientist – perfect to round out their group. But, it was only when Angela finally met Victoria that she knew this red head was special. The group brought Victoria on board for many months before revealing themselves to her.

Until that fateful day when Angela came to Victoria, with Adam in tow, and told her, "I believe that Adam and I can help you. Help you the way he helped me."

Victoria never trusted Adam from the start, but she had no reason not to trust him, so she brushed those feelings aside. Besides, like all of them, Victoria too wanted to share what she was going through with someone. Victoria didn't want to feel alone. And like Angela said, the group helped her. And soon Victoria Pratt understood what she was capable of. There were now twelve – thirteen counting Adam.

Life is hard when you live a normal run-of-the-mill life, but when you're not normal, life is crushing. In the short years since the group had come together they had never worked harder in so many respects. They were in a war and they knew it. And as Daniel Linderman had once said, "war is hell." But they all understood what they were getting into, at least they all thought they did. For every foe they beat and every disaster they stopped, there were a million others around the next corner and thousands more they weren't able to prevent.

They were learning it was an emotional and physically trying job, saving the world, especially when it took so much work to move time just a few inches. That even with the hardest work, not much seemed to change – the larger picture never altered much. For even when they changed things for the better, for the greater good, it didn't mean time didn't try to re-heal itself and move things back on its path. For every action has a reaction; and there was no way of knowing how one act, one change, could set off the line of time like a set of fallen dominoes. One could only live in the moment and do what one felt was right – move forward in the name of a higher purpose. The group met regularly on what should be done, using Angela's dreams as a road map – it all started in steps. What else could they do, but move forward?

* * *

**Angela & Kaito**

Kaito's Kirby Plaza Office

* * *

Kaito and Angela stood in his office. It was not unusual for them to be alone together late at night, early in the morning, late into the afternoon. It was commonplace for any of the thirteen to be in random groups together in their Kirby Plaza offices or in Charles's Apartment – wherever they met.

It had been a little over a year since Kaito and Angela had that fateful lunch. They had been doing a wonderful job at being friends and it was as if that time in their life had never happened. There was for sure still a spark, it was just something they danced around, pretending it wasn't there, as they grew closer and closer as friends and confidantes.

Kaito unrolled a set of blueprints over his desk to show Angela. It was for what looked like a large facility with the words Odessa, Texas written at the bottom in white letters."It will be a facility equipped with a lab for Victoria, offices and--"

"Prison cells," Angela interrupted him.

"If needed..."

Angela wrung her gloves between her hands, and walked around the plans, to get a better look.

Kaito followed her. "We will teach them, help them, and yes, perhaps eliminate them if need be... We have to protect our own, we have to protect mankind from this, we can't leave this to normal people—"

"Then we'll be the one in cages," Angela gestured with her head. " Please, I know. If people knew what we were capable of they'd lock us away and throw away the key. I know how people react to us. We're protecting our future and our families future – for generations." She took a small coin off his desk and spun it like a top. "I heard Victoria was starting research for a cure." She looked up at him.

"A cure? Yes, she is looking into a way we can perhaps take away someone's abilities, if needed. Right now it's only a theory." He felt she wasn't just asking for asking's sake. "Why do you ask, Angela?"

"No reason..." She shook it off, but there was, of course, a reason. There is a reason for everything. Angela set her hand on Kaito's desk .

"You look tired, Angela." He checked in with her. "Have you been sleeping?"

"No," she shook her head and looked away. "I don't want to sleep."

Kaito put his hand on hers. "You must talk to someone about this --you must talk to Arthur about this."

Angela took his gaze. "He doesn't want to hear it. Facts only. Nothing else."

"Angela." Kaito stepped closer. "Your husband does not treat you the way a woman of your caliber, should be treated."

Kaito took his other hand and caressed her face. She knew she shouldn't let him do it, but she said nothing. And before Angela realized it, she had leaned in and kissed him. She lifted her lips off his, shocked with what she had done. They just looked at each other, not saying a word. He sent the side of his hand along her cheek and away from her face. On the table his other still laid on top of hers in a loving gesture.

Suddenly the door burst open and Angela quickly flicked Kaito's hand away from hers. She didn't even have to do it, they were all friends, it proved nothing, except it showed Kaito how scared she was. It showed him her true feelings.

Arthur walked in. "There you are, " he said to his wife. "Kaito." He nodded his head toward Kaito. "We're leaving now." Arthur left the room and Angela started to follow.

Kaito grabbed Angela by the arm lovingly and whispered in her ear.

"I'm leaving for Japan in the morning. Once there, I will be gone for four months. I will be home for rest of the night. It is your choice."

Angela didn't know what to say, she just looked at him with uncertain yet calm eyes and then exited.

* * *

**Angela & Arthur Petrelli**

Manhattan

* * *

Nathan heard his parents fighting downstairs in his father's study, but he didn't know why or of what. He just covered his ears and put his pillow over his head. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon, but the sky was dark with rain clouds.

"I'm tired, Arthur, "Angela declared.

"Then sleep for god's sake. Sleep!" he demanded.

"Don't make me do this. I can't take it anymore... I need a break!"

"We need to know, Angela."

"I can't turn on and off what I dream..."

"Take the sleeping pills – you know they bring them on, just take them and be done with it.." He slammed the bottle down on the mantel of the fireplace.

"Don't make me do this –I just need some time. Time to breathe."

"We don't have time, Angie."

"I told you not to call me that anymore." She tore away from him.

He grabbed her arm to stop her. "I'm not playing games here. Don't make me."

She darted away from Arthur and out of the study. She grabbed her white raincoat as Arthur followed her into the living room.

Angela careened through the foyer. She took hold of her red umbrella and took long strides toward the door as Arthur chased after her.

"You're nothing, but an ungrateful child, Angela, it's time you grew up!" And Arthur heard the door slam as he entered the empty foyer. "We've all had to grow up, it's only fair." But she was gone. All he could hear was his own silence and the rain falling against the outside windows.

When Angela reached the apartment Kaito was renting she went directly to the penthouse. No one questioned her as she walked across the marble hallway and into the elevator. She was determined and ready to take the consequences of her own actions.

When the lift reached the penthouse Angela took a moment before exiting. She walked toward the door, unsure if she had made the right decision. Angela could hear nothing but the sound of the rain rattling against the roof of the old apartment building. It seemed to echo off the ceiling and through the hallway.

She shook her umbrella hard, taking her emotions out on it, before leaving it in a stand next to the door. She was surprised he opened the door so quickly and he was even more surprised to find her there.

"I didn't think you would come," he said walking backwards into his apartment as Angela entered and closed the door behind her.

"Neither did I..." she said with determination. And in one move Angela had her hands on Kaito's face and her lips on his lips, kissing him hard and long. It felt cool, like a drink of water in the desert. It didn't at all make Angela feel bad or wrong like she thought it might, it in fact made her feel good. Kaito didn't pause for a moment, kissing her back.

"You don't know how long I have waited for this," he told her, but she wouldn't stop kissing, and touching him as she took off her rain coat. Angela kicked off her shoes and he whispered in her ear, as she hung off of him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

And she whispered back, "Yes."

He started to unbutton her dress, which was a little wet from the rain. She looked up at him with doe eyes causing him to stop.

"I've only ever been with my husband," she confessed to him like a child.

He nodded his head understanding. He understood what a big choice this was for her. And then he took Angela Petrelli into his bedroom.

After it was over Angela laid in Kaito's arms as the sun set, turning the murky day into a dark night. The rain hit the window and trailed down the slanted frame like small rivers and streams. Somewhere deep inside of her, Angela felt happy and content. She was starting to remember what it felt like to feel alive again – it had been a long time. She was only twenty-eight years old.

It was then that Angela caught sight of Kaito's curtains, hanging along the side of a large window, and it dawned on her that they were, in fact, the same curtains from her dream a year earlier. And she flashed back to what had just transpired between her and Kaito, moments before, and she knew she had in fact dreamt their encounter, after she had met him that second time in the park. And it was also at that moment that Angela wondered -- had she come to Kaito because of her dream or was the dream telling her in the future she would come to see Kaito. Was it all just a self-fulfulling prophesy calling her to him? Had she made up her mind or had her mind been made up for her? Was it just all inevitable? Or by trying to change it all had Angela created the outcome she was trying to avoid?

That night Angela left Kaito's apartment and Kaito left for Japan the next morning, both having no idea what the future held for them. It was a new feeling for Angela or at least something she hadn't felt in a long time. She really wondered if their encounter had been just that, an encounter, never to happen again, but she was wrong. Four months later, when Kaito returned back to the United States they picked up right where they left off. This went on for a year. And there was no way they could not become close. They taught each other things, lessons the two would remember for the rest of their lives.

He told her the stories of Kensei, children's stories of course, but when Kaito taught her, "Sometimes to protect what is most important, one must cut their own heart," she demanded to know where it came from.

It was something Angela understood and knew was important, but had not yet learned to live by. Adam was teaching her, Arthur was showing her, but Kaito really made her understand what only experience would solidify. She would soon learn that she had to think of herself first, for no one else would, but when it came down to it the greater good, the larger piece of the pie – sacrifices had to be made. And that meant her own thoughts and feelings had to go to the wayside. It was the only way to save the world. But first she had to learn the message, before she could put it into practice.

Whenever Kaito was in town, Angela met him in the afternoons in his apartment. Sometimes she would stay all day before returning home at night to see her family.

And in that year Angela felt passion she had not felt since she was eighteen. It was a way for her to escape. When she was with Kaito, he looked past what she could do for him, with her ability or as a wife and a mother – he looked past what she represented. He saw her and not her caesarian scar or the fact that she could not give him children – It all didn't matter. With Kaito she was selfish, and it felt good. With Kaito she could be Angela and not just Angela Petrelli. With Kaito she felt power, she felt in control.

One would say that if you looked deep into the heart of Angela Petrelli, in a place she would never have looked herself, she was, at that time in her life, in love with Kaito Nakamura. The only problem was... she was also in love with her husband.

* * *

**Charles & Angela**

The Deveaux Roof

_1976_

* * *

Angela and Charles sat on his roof together. It was back when it was a beautiful sight and in top condition. Back when it had flowers and beautiful out door furniture. The roof, along with his greenhouse/hothouse, was Charles pride and joy.

Charles watched Angela, looking off aimlessly at everyone else, through the large window doors that separated the house from the rooftop. A tea service had been set up. Through the doors Charles and Angela could see Suzanne, Kaito, Linderman, Adam and Arthur talking passionately in Charles's living room.

Charles looked over at Angela; she was off somewhere and Charles knew it. "So..." Charles leaned back. "How long do you expect** that** to go on..."

"What?" Angela was caught. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

"The fighting..." Charles continued.

"How can you tell they're fighting, we can't even hear what they're saying. For all we know they're having a very passionate discussion." She stirred her tea.

"Noo." Charles said in all his confidence. "Look at the body language," he motioned with his head. " It always gives people away. You don't have to be Maury to know what people are thinking," he chuckled to himself.

"What do you mean?" She looked off.

"Well, look..." He leaned in and pointed to the people in the room as Angela turned toward the big window. "Arthur. Now he stands straight, full, watching, but you can see the burden he carries, the stress -- he holds it all inside."

"You know that from just knowing him, " she retorted.

"Not all of us know him the way you do, Angela." He caught her eyes and he saw she wanted him to continue. "Daniel. Now, he's a puppy. I suspect he'll grow up to be a tiger, but right now he looks up to Adam too intently, he's a follower right now --yet strong and secretive – he carries himself with strength, but inside he's not fully found himself and it shows in his eagerness. Look at his hand. It's tapping his knee, up and down. Nervous energy he can't let go of yet. But, he will. He wants to be as powerful as Arthur... he just doesn't know how yet and it's killing him." Charles laughed for a moment.

"What about Harry?" Angela inquired, wanting to hear more of Charles's game.

"Harry. Well... Harry deflects with his humor. But look at his eyes sometime, there's sadness in there, mixed in with the blue. He is a deeply feeling man. Look at his hands, his legs, steady as a rock." Charles fixed his eyes on Kaito next. "Kaito. Kaito so wants to be a good man, but he knows being good is a double-edged sword. He seems content with doing what needs to be done for the sake of a greater good."

"Like us all..." Angela stood and walked away from Charles. She looked at the window of people who spoke with nothing but silences and she saw words for the first time. "I see it...," she said. It would be a lesson Angela would soon become adept at putting into practice.

"Body language says a lot, Angela. Like you and Kaito. You're obviously close."

"We're all close."

"But, something in that dynamic has changed. He touches you just a little longer than before, your laugh projects across a room at a quicker velocity, your hands avoid each other when people are looking. So, again Angela, I ask you. How long do you except that to go on?"

Angela lowered her head before turning around and sucking in her tears. She walked closer to Charles and they stared each other down.

"What about Kaito, Angela?" Charles asked with a stern kindness.

"What about him?" she snapped. But, her body language gave it all away as Angela shifted her weight from her left leg to her right and fidgeted ever so slightly with her fingers in front of her.

"Angela," he scolded her without any condescension. He always treated her like the adult she was. "How long?"

"Almost a year...," she played with her ring for a moment, but caught herself fidgeting and stopped.

"Do you love him?" he asked.

"Love?" she scoffed. "We're just having fun," she retorted.

Charles didn't seem to believe her. "Do you care for him, then?"

"I am fond of him, yes." She tried to deflect the issue with a lower tone in her voice. She sat back down next to Charles.

Charles wasn't fooled. "Fond of him..." He tried not to laugh. "Yeah...," he leaned back in his chair. "It's hard I know. All of us together. That connection flowing around. I can see how it can be confused for love. Harry over there, he thinks he's in love with Suzanne, but then who knows what blonde with an ability would make his head turn. We all feel like we understand each other, who says that's not love? That we all don't love each other."

"Maybe that's all Arthur and I were? Maybe we were confused into thinking we were in love."

"Do you really believe that, Angela? That man loves you._ Desperately_. He just doesn't know how to show it to you anymore. I know you're lonely and you feel abandoned. And you're both consenting adults, but you need to not give up so easily."

"**Easily.**..?" She didn't like that.

He took her hand. "I know you love Arthur, Angela. I'm just saying, look into your heart. Look deep into your heart and then you need to make a choice. You can't have it both ways. If anything this world has taught us, and you know that – is you can't live two lives, you need to live one life and commit to that – no matter the cost. I just want you to have your hope back, Angela. I see in your eyes, you've lost your hope."

Angela stood again and turned her back on Charles. She caught sight of Arthur in the window.

Angela didn't want to hurt Arthur, but he had hurt her so many times, maybe he deserved a little hurt in return, she thought. It wasn't a kind thought, but it was an honest thought; it was human.

"Do you think Arthur knows?" Angela asked with concern.

"No. I don't think he does. As you know..." Charles shifted confidently in his chair. "When it comes to you he's not very good in the paying attention department." He took a sip of his tea.

Angela turned and smiled at her friend. Charles smiled back.

"Speaking of paying attention." Charles put his hands out for her.

Angela came forward and took his hands

"I feel like I've been neglecting you lately, myself – Dear friend." Charles smiled large.

"We've all been busy."

He all of a sudden got serious. "I really am worried about you, Angela."

"Don't be. I'll figure it out," her voice was calm and sure. Charles could make her feel that way.

"It's not just Kaito. You and Arthur, Linderman – the way you are with Adam... you look to Adam too fiercely, you look to him like a god. Like he has some kind of hold over you – and not just you three – I see it in some of the others. This hero worship."

"He's helped me so much. All of us. Understanding ourselves. His ideas, his outlook on history --it's helped us all."

"That doesn't mean he's your savior, Angela. You shouldn't look for someone to save you." He held onto her hands tightly and shook them. "Only you can save yourself."

Suddenly the door burst open and loud noises were heard from within the apartment. Charles and Angela turned toward the noise instantly.

Suzanne was at the other end of it of the open door. "Come quick! They won't stop fighting," she urged.

Angela and Charles came running.

"Arthur, be fair on him, come onཀ'" Harry yelled from the corner of the room, blood dripped from his mouth from trying to intervene. "You outmatch him."

Arthur grunted. "Maybe we need to do this the old fashioned way then," Arthur took a swing at Kaito who was already on the ground, right in the jaw. "My wifeཀ" It looked like a vein would pop out of his head. He grabbed Kaito and kicked him in the stomach.

Everyone was afraid to use their powers to intervene, in fear of hurting one of their friends.

Adam and Charles held Arthur back as Angela stood horrified in the doorway. Somehow a statue broke, sending shards of it toward Angela's feet; she jumped back.

"You sleep with my wifeཀ" Arthur bellowed. "After everything we've done for you!" Arthur pulled away from Charles and Adam. "Don't you have anything to say for yourself!?" Arthur demanded.

Kaito rose slowly, taking a breath before speaking. "I have nothing to say, " his head was lowered and his breath was heavy. He looked up into Arthur's eyes ashamed, but with a sense of calm. "I knew it was wrong. I just couldn't help myself."

It was then that Adam looked into Kaito Nakamura's face and knew that this man was Hiro's kin.

Arthur punched Kaito in the face and again Kaito fell to the ground. The crowd made a fuss for them to stop. Kaito lifted himself up off the ground and charged after Arthur, getting in a few hard jabs, before taking hold of Arthur's body and slamming his back against a table that held a porcelain vase – the vase cracked over Arthur's back. The crowd again yelled for them to stop as the two men continued to fight. Daniel and Harry had to pulled Kaito off of Arthur and were now holding him back and calming him down.

Arthur fell to the ground, emotionally and physically exhausted . He collapsed there on his knees dazed and confused, breathing heavy from the fight.

"Take him home, Angela!" Charles bellowed. "Just take him home."

"Not with her." Arthur took two deep breaths. "I won't go home with her. "

Adam put his arm out and Arthur grabbed hold of it to lift himself up. Adam eyed Angela, she only reminded him of every woman who had done him wrong in the same way. Angela said nothing. She may have not known of Adam's past, but she understood what that look meant.

"I'll leave myself." Arthur pushed off any reaches for help he was offered. "I wasn't gonna kill him..." He wiped a spatter of blood from his lip. "If I wanted to kill him..." He looked directly at Angela. "I could **kill** him." And Arthur left.

Everyone took a breath almost literally and figuratively. Angela, remaining as regal as a queen, with her humiliation just showing under the surface, stepped over the remains of Charles living room and followed her husband home.

* * *

**Angela and Arthur Petrelli**

Manhattan

* * *

That night, the sounds of the Petrellis fighting could be heard in their bedroom. This time Nathan wasn't home to hide under his pillow.

"Why him?" Arthur ranted.

"I don't know...," she stammered, yet still strong and in control.

"Why himཀ?" He was directly in her face. He downed his scotch and set it on the lip of the fireplace.

"Because you weren't an option, anymore! I missed you, I was lonely. I don't know?ཀ" Her mind was spinning – it was all such a disaster.

"You need to end it, Angela," he demanded.

"I know that now –" she was firm yet her voice was filled with pain.

"Him or your family - you can't have both," he snarled.

"I know that! I choose you, I always would have, you know that. I choose _this _family. What's left of it. I didn't do this to hurt you!" Well, at least at first she didn't.

"We never do, do we." She had hurt Arthur more than any blade could..

The door to their bedroom opened and Adam, Maury and Daniel walked in.

"_What's this_?" Angela wasn't pleased and she knew something was up - they were all in a group.

"I think there are a few things you're not telling us, Angela..." Daniel cooed. He showed Angela her little black book of dreams.

"What are you doing with that?" Angela felt violated.

"Who knows what other secrets you haven't told us," Maury's voice was a gravelly whisper.

Adam looked at Angela with disappointment. "I kept telling them, no, Angela, wouldn't do that. I kept telling them, no, Angela doesn't keep secrets. I guess I was wrong."

Arthur walked away from Angela as Maury got closer to her.

Angela looked frightened out of her mind. "Noo, noo don't do this. Arthur..." She tried to get Arthur's gaze, but he wouldn't take it. "Don't do this!"

"It's for the greater good, Angela." Adam looked her dead in the eyes. "You understand."

Adam, Arthur and Daniel all turned toward the door to exit, while Maury stayed. Adam and Daniel walked out first, before looking back toward Arthur, who had paused in the doorway, his left hand holding the doorknob. Adam and Daniel flanked Arthur from behind; like the two all knowing Iago's that they were to him.

Arthur wouldn't give Angela his eyes. He looked at Maury. "While you're in there, take out anything else we might need." And he closed the door behind him with a crack.

Adam patted Arthur on the back; he knew it wasn't easy.

"Please don't–." Arthur's heart skipped a beat and his body seemed to shorten.

Adam pulled his arm away. "Nakamura men.." Adam shook his head. "They always steal your women."

"What do we do about him? With Kaito?" Daniel questioned.

"We need him right now," Adam answered. "Tell him Arthur forgives him and we move on. What's done is done. We're all men here. Make one of the Primatech facilities his pet project. Should keep him busy for awhile. He'll be going back to Japan at some point. Maybe he'll find himself someone else's wife," he retorted.

"If you'll excuse me." Arthur wouldn't look at the men. " I don't want to talk about this just now." He took a breath. "Come get me when it's done." Arthur walked to the edge of the staircase and stopped. "And just make sure he's finished before my son gets home." With that, Arthur went to his study to sit by the fire and drink a glass of scotch.

Hours later Angela laid across her bedroom floor, tears running down her face and blood dripping from her nose. The fire burned in the fireplace, sending shadows across her face, while at the same time she ripped her notebook in half and threw the pages into the fire. She watched it burn. She just watched it burn.

The events of time do a lot to a person. They do a lot to a person's soul. And the founders of the company had struggled and pushed against time until it almost broke, until it broke them. And still, just like it always had, no matter what they changed it took grueling and back-breaking work to do so. And as much as they wanted to save the world and at times did save it, they discovered something new. That as much as the world says it, the world does not want to save itself. No one changes their ways, people lose their faith, their will -- they do selfish things. When they can't beat them, they join them. And again, after every villain you defeat, another one comes right around that same corner, with even worse intentions. They would protect themselves and others – no matter what the cost – that's what they decided. But protection isn't pretty. There is always a loser. And even if someone wins, they are very seldom a winner themselves. For the world is not black and white, it is filled with many grey and murky tones that start out as the best laid plans.

Daniel spoke to the group, downstairs in the Petrelli living room. Kaito and Angela were absent."That is what this company will do. It will help those like ourselves...our own kind, protect them. Make a better place for our children. This is how we can continue the great work we are doing." The group agreed and Primatech would officially be born, the die was cast and they all signed off for the first brick to be laid. Arthur made his apologies for his, "sick," wife.

That night Arthur found Angela asleep on the floor next to the fireplace. He lifted her like a baby in his arms and set her on the bed. He could see her eyes moving rapidly under her lids -- she was dreaming. He wiped the blood from under her nose and softly set her head on the pillow. He used his fingers to dry the tears that had not yet dried.

"I am sorry, " he said. His eyes were filled with emotion. Arthur leaned in and kissed Angela on the forehead, lingering there for a moment. "In so many ways." And he let her sleep.

Arthur walked out of his bedroom to find Nathan standing there. "Let your mother sleep, Nathan." He ran his hand through the top of the boy's hair. "She's been through a lot today."

Little Nathan was always under the impression that his mother was a terrible sleeper, because when she finally did sleep, it was never at proper bedtimes and he was always told, "she needed it."

It wasn't until recently, as an adult, that Nathan replayed all the times, over in his head, that he found his mother walking the halls late at hours. The hospital visits, the arrival of strangers at the door. Perhaps it all wasn't just normal dysfunction, perhaps there was a pattern. Perhaps he had overlooked so much, as children tend to do, when it comes to seeing their parents as real people.

* * *

**Petrelli and Linderman**

Arthur's Study, The Petrelli Home

* * *

That night Angela dreamed what would happen hours into the night, hours before it happened. It was one of her, "fly on the wall dream," as she called them. For instead of dreaming in dream- like metaphors, Angela watched the action as if removed from it, as if she was in fact a fly on the wall.

The fire was burning, almost crackling in the silence of Arthur's study. He sat in a large red chair against his bright salmon colored walls.

Daniel entered the room slowly and shut the door. Arthur turned his head slightly toward Daniel, yet said nothing. The fire reflected through the glass of scotch Arthur held in his right hand, making the glass look illuminated like a giant ball of fire.

"We drew lots." Daniel let go of the doorknob behind him, sending him forward into the room. "Looks like I drew the short _straw_."

Arthur didn't say a word, he wasn't in a mood for speaking or jokes.

"She's a very loyal woman, your wife..." Daniel rolled his eyes upward. "Considering."

"Is she, now?' Arthur said sarcastically.

"I know, now isn't the time..."

"It isn't," Arthur stated harshly. He stood and walked closer to the fireplace.

Daniel walked over to him and mirrored Arthur next to the hearth. "Except for a few small things, private things Maury pulled out of her -- she hasn't been keeping anything from us– nothing she hasn't shared – except the...situation at hand," he tried to be delicate. "A few dreams she had as a child, I don't think she remembered them herself – just more of those vague dreams about some unspecific bomb, again."

Arthur looked as if he was holding in about ten thousand emotions.

"She's a loyal woman, that Angela, but she was weak, Arthur. _Weak_." Daniel leaned in. "But, now she'll never keep anything from us again. It was the right thing to do. We had to know for sure."

What Angela learned that night was that her secrets could be used against her as a weapon. Her weakness had been her undoing and she would use all her power to never show them she was weak again.

As Charles would later tell her, "Linderman has been wrong before,' and this was one of those instances. For this event in Angela Petrelli's life, only made Angela keep her secrets closer to her chest and further from her mind. What Daniel Linderman thought would make the woman honest had in fact done the opposite. It made her closer to the woman she would become.

* * *

**Chapter Seven:** Angela makes plans to put her past behind her and her families future ahead of her.


	8. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

**Characters:**Victoria, Nathan (8 years old) Kaito/Angela.

**Notes**: Please review your thoughts on this project. Reviews don't just help the writers, in all their forms, good, bad, --what makes you want to read more or not and not to mention it lets me know if I should continue, reviews shows others this is a story worth reading. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or put an alert on this story. It means a lot. You have no idea. Writing is something that happens alone in a room, it is hard to know. :) If you want more let me know with your honest thoughts. I can take it. Thank you.

* * *

**Victoria & Angela**

Manhattan

_Early 1977_

* * *

Kaito always told Angela she spent too much time with her mind in the future, and he wasn't talking about her power. Angela used to think that was funny because Kaito was a man who spent far too much time thinking of the past, she felt. Angela's life was filled with too many regrets and mistakes to look back now; looking ahead was her only frame of reference. But in truth, it was hard for a woman who always literally could see what was happening five paces ahead of her not to live there. There was just no way for her not to spend much of her time in a future, while she unconsciously laid waste to what was happening in her present. Why worry about now, when tomorrow was much more of a concern?

And that was why on that winter day in 1977 Angela asked her friend Victoria Pratt over to her home, during the day, while Arthur was at work. That was why, on that day, Victoria had promised to tell Angela the findings of her research before making it public to the group. Plans for the future were at hand; and Angela knew the past needed to be put to rest in order to do so. It would not be the last time the two would make a promise to each other; it would not be the last time they would disagree. It would, however, be like usual in that Victoria would tell Angela nothing but the truth.

Victoria and Angela stood in the Petrelli living room. Angela looked concerned and distraught and her eyes had a glassy glow to them as she held in her emotions.

"There is no way your children will **not **have an ability, Angela." Victoria spoke her facts as they were – facts and nothing else. "Any child that you and Arthur have together will be special. There's no way around it."

Angela wouldn't look at Victoria. She faced the sea of pictures on her living room table as she looked off somewhere, off in her head - she was worried for Nathan. Not to mention Angela couldn't help shake the sad fact of what Victoria didn't know – that she and Arthur would be having no more children together.

"Based on what we know, what we've seen, you don't have to be a scientist to see it. But the findings I have discovered, they show the pattern--the genetics, without a shadow of a doubt."

"You're sure...?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"I think you'd know better than I could ever--" she retorted, astonished.

"Ma!" Nathan ran into the room interrupting them**.** He was eight years old.

"Don't yell in the house, Nathan," she was stern with him. "You know my friend, Ms. Pratt."

"Ahh... yeah I guess..." Nathan was trying to be polite, but he really didn't care. He was an only child and treated as the king he was, he had certain attitudes already.

"Oh, Nathan knows me..." Victoria spoke sweetly. "I think I tucked you in one night at one of your parent's parties..."

"Where are you going?" Angela looked at him in his baseball uniform.

"I have a game tonight."

"Oh, I'm sorry Nathan, I forgot." She seemed distracted. She had more important things on her mind than Nathan's present; his future.

"I don't care, " he shrugged if off. "Pop's coming later," he said brightly. The mention of his father changed Nathan's entire being.

"Oh..." Angela was deflated. She was losing him to Arthur – it was that time.

"I'm just telling you I'm going..." He just wanted to get it over with.

"Come here." She put our her hand.

Begrudgingly, the boy slogged over to his mother and got what he knew was coming. She hugged him and left a large kiss on the top of his head, holding onto him for a moment longer than boys that age want to be held by their mothers.

"Maཀ" Nathan whined and Angela was forced to let go. Nathan pulled from her clutches and ran out the door to the car waiting for him.

Victoria saw the concern on Angela's face. "He'll be fine, Angela."

"No, he won't. If I can't help it. And so far we haven't been able to help anything. Nothing we do really sticks for long. This pain never ends. The world doesn't want to be saved. Time just re- heals itself around us. It's all just inevitable. " She looked at Victoria. " Do I really want that burden to be left on his head? I don't want to pass this madness onto my children, and what you're saying is there's no way around it. There's nothing I can do about it. And I don't take that as an answer."

"Your DNA says it all Angela. I've looked at everyone's. And you and Arthur -- you're carriers for sure. And the mixture of your DNA-- there's no reason Nathan won't be like us. With two people with abilities, there's no way _not _to pass it on. It's... to use your words... inevitable."

Angela's concern did not waver. Victoria's words only intensified Angela's feelings of fear for her only son. Angela turned from Victoria and started to slowly walk around the room.

Victoria tried to talk about the bright side of things. "But, look at what you have done, what we have _all_ done. If you hadn't dreamt about that flood, about the tsunami in January – you saved so many people Angela – not just Miami, but the whole eastern seaboard. Things can change. Sometimes the work we do does matter." She paused, looking for the right words to say. "Isn't that enough?"

It wasn't the first or the last time someone would ask of Angela Petrelli, "Isn't that enough?" Angela's problem was it never was and that would be her downfall.

Angela looked at Victoria straight. "Does anyone else know this yet? What's in your report?"

"No, I haven't finished it yet. I'm telling you early as a favor to you. As a friend."

Angela looked at her and Victoria knew that look.

"No, no. Angela I can't do that– please..."

"You took that virus from that Indian girl, Suresh – it could be a cure..."

"Cure? That cure is years away, right now all we have is a virus that takes away your powers and THEN kills you – and although useful in some respects, doesn't do much for our children, _Angela_. Research takes _years_. I've just started mine. I may never be able to cure them... and you can't tell me you don't already know when Nathan will manifest – what he can do? You knew what I was capable of before I did."

"Do you know how an ability is determined? Why people can do what they can do?"

"I'm not sure yet. I don't even know why certain people manifest when they do. I haven't met or seen one person with an ability like us who had it from birth. I can only guess, as of now, and it's purely a guess, based on hearing everyone's stories– and my work in the lab is that we all have this mutation and either at a certain point based on need or pre-termination -- Like how several generations of women can seem to hit puberty all around the same age, something just kicks in."

"You think we pick what we can do? Or it chooses us?"

"Maybe subconsciously, but more out of instinct. I'm thinking partly out of necessity. Perhaps some primordial reaction to what we _need _in the moment to survive." She took a breath, but it wasn't a moment to think for one could tell this was a debate Victoria had already been having with herself for a long time. "Who we are, I think does factor in, or what we can do factors in to who we become." She seemed to be talking it out with herself as she spoke. "Again, it's all speculation, I can't even begin to figure out how this effects generations until I can study them, see a pattern. It will all be in my report and when Primatech Research is up and running we can get more case studies."

"Please, Victoria. Don't do this," Angela pleaded.

"They will figure it out on their own. We've all suspected. It's not the hardest deduction in my findings."

"Suspecting is one thing, I don't want to give them proof." She took in a deep emotional breath, but was able to keep her voice calm. "For Nathan, please... just do this for me."

"You do know, don't you?" She looked at her with shocked eyes.

Angela said nothing, which in Victoria's eyes already gave her away. There was no question in the room that Angela knew what Nathan was capable of and that it was a secret she would not be sharing anytime soon.

"If you keep my secret, one day I will keep one of yours. You have my word." Her eyes filled with tears.

Victoria took a moment and waited before nodding her head yes.

"Thank you." Angela lowered her head.

Victoria walked closer to Angela. "They've all thought from the beginning you and Arthur could have the most powerful children of all of us ...Nathan will be watched, no matter what my report says. And once he reaches a certain age, his every move will be scrutinized."

"Well, by that time maybe I will have come up with a plan for him that will keep him away from the front lines. Perhaps something new will arise. I'll take care of that when the time arrives. I always do."

And Victoria had no doubt that whatever her friend Angela put her mind to would be accomplished.

* * *

**Nakamura & Petrelli**

JFK Airport

NYC

_Two Days Later_

* * *

The sounds of airplanes taking off filled the morning sky. Angela Petrelli entered the airport terminal, her hands firmly clasped around the pearls that hung from her neck. She looked elegant and regal, a rich woman of 1977. The airport was semi-filled with travelers and the sound of planes could still be heard overhead. She seemed to look about nervously, yet forcefully. Like so often Angela Petrelli was a woman on a mission. She was a woman with a plan.

She caught Kaito's eye as he finally came into her view. He had Victoria in tow, tickets in their pockets, carry-on bags over their shoulders, they were on their way to Odessa, Texas. They were on their way to start Primatech – after that he would be on his way to Hartsdale, NY.

Kaito was surprised to see her. Victoria looked at Kaito cautiously as if to say, "I don't think this is such a good idea," but Kaito put his hand up and Victoria walked away reluctantly, telling him their plane would be leaving soon. Kaito nodded his head to Victoria and she vanished from view.

Angela took two steps toward Kaito, but stopped half way between the two of them.

"Angela?" Kaito approached her with his usual firm manner.

"I just..." She gestured with her head and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes looked red and tired. It was the first time they were alone together since their secret was revealed. When she heard he was leaving for a long period of time she felt in her gut she had to see him one last time. It was her instinct kicking in. "The way things ended...I know this isn't goodbye for good, but I just... I just...wanted the chance to say..." She couldn't finish her words.

"Goodbye, " he finished it for her.

Angela nodded her head. "I thought you deserved that." She searched for a few more words to say, but Angela couldn't find them. She found herself brushing a piece of lint off his left shoulder. She started to lay her hand on the spot, but stopped herself. She looked around before looking at him again. "You reminded me of what it was like to feel alive, again." She smiled, but it looked as if it hurt her to do so through her emotion. " To feel loved." She paused and said softly, "Thank you." Tears started to come to her eyes, but she took a deep breath and held them in. "I'm sorry, things got so out of hand. I never meant it to turn into this."

"Neither did I." He had this way of being firm, but loving with her.

"It's for the best. For everyone involved. I know we both understand that." She took a deep breath. "I just can't go on like this anymore. I need to stay with my family. " She also had a way of being firm and loving.

"You still love him, don't you?"

Angela looked at Kaito. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke volumes and it was confirmed to Kaito what he already knew; that he could never compete with Arthur Petrelli for Angela Petrelli's heart. And part of him had known that going in. Yet, none of this meant they wouldn't always be friends. It just meant that from then on they would have to continue the distance that was already starting between them. It was just understood; this just made it official.

Finally, Angela spoke. "It's the right thing to do, Kaito." She nodded her head. "This wasn't going anywhere, we both knew that going in." She tossed it off, trying to make herself believe it.

This was the new Angela, always trying to be the realist, but Kaito wondered if most of the time she even knew if she meant what she was saying. It was hard to tell; she was getting that good at it. Angela was getting very good at the game of lies.

Kaito nodded his head and looked at her. Angela had already grown so much since he had met her, but he still knew what was really going on with her, despite her good show, for before they were lovers they had always been friends. It was hard not to hold back tears for the beauty of seeing a girl grow into a woman. He would tell her this after the fact.

"Angela," he spoke from the bottom of his deep voice. "I only hope one day you are loved in a way you feel your heart deserves." He paused for a moment and spoke from what could only be described as the depth of his soul. "I only fear, your expectations are too high." He spoke his last line with a little bit of concern and sadness for her.

Victoria came into view; it was time for their plane.

Angela and Kaito both knew they couldn't touch each other, or kiss, or even take hands for one brief moment. And it wasn't just for both of them that they were losing a love, it was that they were both losing a friend – it was different.

They would see each other eight more times for the rest of his lifetime, only six of which were spent alone.

And thirty years after their goodbye in the airport when Angela Petrelli told officer Parkman and officer Fuller that she hadn't slept with Kaito Nakamura, "not for a long time, now," a tiny smile came to her face, because it was a joyful memory. He was part of her experience; and she would always care for him, and him her.

But she knew for so many reasons she could never be that weak again. It was a lifelong promise she made to herself. And when a Petrelli makes a promise, they keep them or at least they try – sometimes to their dying breath.

And when a week later, Angela sat in the conference room of the group's New York City offices at Kirby Plaza and Adam Monroe whispered in her ear, "I would have never done this before Kaito -- but since you're willing, " she was mortified and embarrassed.

Adam ran his hand up her thigh, his tongue down her throat and she pushed him away. And then the fear came. The fear that she had offended her mentor raged inside of her. She was a deer caught in the headlights – Adam saw it.

Adam's voice was but a whisper, "It's alright." He nodded his head sweetly, looking her dead in the eyes, his face up against hers. His voice was soft and understanding. "Don't worry, it's okay, it's all okay... we'll just pretend this never happened. It's all alright. We will never speak of this again. Go. Go home to your husband."

Adam got out of Angela's way. She quickly grabbed her purse and left the office with her head low and her insides even lower.

And when she was gone, and out of sight, Adam Monroe punched his fist right through a plate glass window. It sent shards of glass into Adam's knuckle which his body expelled onto the floor, as his skin healed the wounds. For being rejected by a woman who had given herself freely to a Nakamura was not alright, and something that did not sit well with one Adam Monroe. In fact, it ran his blood red with rage. But Adam Monroe needed Angela Petrelli just as much as she thought she needed him. For Adam had in mind something that even Angela could never dream of. And he knew getting her on his side would seal their future, as 1977 slowly left its infancy and hell was about to begin -- if it hadn't already started.

* * *

**Chapter Eight:** Fall 1977. Adam Monroe has a plan to save the world and he needs Victoria's virus to do so. Will Angela go along with him or stop him before it's too late?


	9. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

**Characters**: Adam, Angela, Arthur, Linderman, Charles, Victoria, Kaito & The 12

**Notes:** Please feedback. I thank you.

* * *

**October 1977**

* * *

1977 was a troubled year in New York City. The black out, the looting that followed, the crime – Son of Sam was roaming the streets. There were rumblings and fear among the group that he was special like them; they were glad they were wrong. The country wasn't doing so well itself. On the other coast the Zodiac killer was making the rounds in California. There was a flood in Pennsylvania and a dam burst in Georgia. The world wasn't in the best shape as well. The Massacre of Atocha during the Spanish transition to democracy, earthquakes in Bucharest, coups, wars, bombings, terrible storms in Greece, assassinations, terrorism, hijacking. Angela's generation had lived through so much already. They saw two Kennedys and Martin Luther King shot dead, Vietnam, Nixon, Kent State, Charles Manson, the list was endless. And for them it had only been about thirty odd years of living and less than that of living with their powers, of being in this "war" as they called it. A blip in the screen compared to what Adam had seen.

The Garden of Eden was slowly turning into the River Styx, as Angela's friends could stop none of these events from happening – 1977 was a dark time for sure. Angela was only thirty one years old.

What Angela remembers most was the rain. It was a year of unheard of weather, and not just the weather that Angela and her friends had helped create. Angela only wished she had been warned about the flood in Pennsylvania like she had been warned about the tsunami hitting the east coast. She still didn't understand the rhythm or the reason behind what she saw and what she didn't see. Perhaps it was the number of dead. Perhaps it was the level of devastation. Millions over just a few dozen.

It rained and snowed like cats and dogs and this October day wasn't any different. Angela had spent the day finding a costume for Nathan for Halloween and being sure to be home with him before it got dark.. It was late, but Angela was avoiding sleep like usual. She sat in her living room with a lone light on, reading a book and trying to avoid the news. It was a new book by Betty Freidan, on her work with the women's movement of the 1960s. Angela had been late to reading Freidan's previous book _Feminine Mystique_." and therefore the women's movement, but with the little sleep she got Angela had caught up on a lot of reading.

Nathan and Arthur were asleep upstairs.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door so loud it scared her half to death; Angela jumped.

"Arthur!" she heard Adam's voice. "Angela!" Adam opened the mail slot in the door and yelled in. "Angela!"

"Adam?" Angela put down her book and walked to the door. "Nathan's sleeping, keep your voice down." She flipped the dead bolt on the door. "What are you doing?!" She opened the door and the sound of the rain was overwhelming. She was bombarded by a wet Adam as he barged into her home. "You're soaked to the bone." She closed the door behind him.

Adam put his wet hands on her arms, leaving water hand-prints on Angela's forearms. "Where is he, where's Arthur?" He let go of her and looked around as he walked the foyer. "Arthur!!" he yelled toward the stairs. "This concerns you too, Angela." He directed it to her, but turned back to the steps. "Arthur!"

"He's sleeping, as is our son. It's two a. m., Adam, for god's sake, what is going on?"

Arthur appeared at the top of the stairs in his robe and pajamas. "Adam? What the hell is going on here?"

Angela didn't know what to make of Adam's behavior. "He's ranting and raving – I can't get him to stop."

Arthur made his way down the stairs, trying to talk in a whisper, which came out as a raspy yell.

"I have a _son_, sleeping only feet away from this. Not in my house, Adam."

"I had to come talk to you, I knew you would understand. Not, the lot of them." Adam walked into the living room and poured himself a drink. He was dripping everywhere.

There was a knock at the door. Angela and Arthur looked toward the door.

"That'll be Daniel. Let him in, Arthur." Adam bit in his lower lip.

Arthur obeyed and opened the door for Linderman. Angela looked at Adam with deep concern.

Daniel came into the living room shaking the rain from his coat. "I came as soon as you called, what is so urgent... at this hour." He looked at Adam and then at Angela and Arthur.

Adam addressed his followers. "The time has come, my friends." He told them, as Angela, Daniel and Arthur stood in the doorway of the Petrelli living room, perplexed and confused. "Look outside. It's as black as pitch and I don't mean the lack of daylight." He circled the room. "Murder, hate, war, famine, destroying the earth for our own pleasure. The time of gluttony has overcome the world. It all just keeps happening again and again. I've seen it all, all so many times. The world doesn't change, people _don't _change."

"We can't give up hope, Adam." Angela stepped forward.

"Really...?" Adam walked up to Angela and took her by the arm forcefully.

He was scaring Arthur. "Stop it! Adam!"

Angela didn't flinch - she had been taught well.

Adam leaned in and matched her face-to-face. "Do you really believe that, Angela? I hear you complain about the world the same way I have – is this the world you want to leave to Nathan? The world you want him to inhabit? This world that says it wants to be _saved,_ but does nothing about it. We have all worked so hard, for so long and it only gets worse -- it only gets harder. No one wants to listen and they all just die, all of them – they go away anyway, nothing left to live for." He was rambling. " Do you really believe it anymore, Angela? Is there really hope inside of Pandora's box, that we can't seem to close?"

It hit a cord in her. "No, no. I don't believe it anymore," she cried. "I don't."

"Angela!" Arthur scolded her.

Adam looked at Arthur and Daniel and pointed at them like a preacher on Sunday morning. "And you. You both have seen the plague of war, do you see any progress, anything – does man really want to be saved? They don't. They say they do, but they don't take action! Not like we have. No action toward it. They need to be punished. They need to fear. They need to be destroyed and we will start over. A clean slate. A new utopia." His eyes glowed. " Maybe...maybe we shouldn't have stopped that tsunami, stopped that flood. Maybe it's some grand design we're playing with. We need something big, something to pull it all down." His voice rose and rose as he spoke. " I will save you all, I will save Nathan – with my blood, don't worry. I will heal you all and we can start this world over. Years and years. Millennium after millennium and nothing changes. Nothing. I've seen it. Time, and time again."

"Adam..." Daniel walked closer as if asking him to back off.

"What is he talking about?" Arthur questioned Daniel.

Daniel looked at Adam. "We didn't want to tell you, we thought it might scare everyone."

"What?" Angela stepped forward. One wondered if she knew or just suspected. She looked frightened, but curious.

Adam started to confess. "After my cells began to regenerate, after a certain point..." He took in a deep breath, the water from his wet hair dripping from his face. He looked quite mad. "I stopped aging. And I no longer just regenerated...I could never die. I just kept living."

"How long?" Arthur leaned his head forward with the question. He looked as if he was unsure if he really wanted the answer.

Adam took a breath and seethed with pain. "Almost four hundred years.."

Angela took her hand to her mouth. "Oh my god." She hadn't known and she was shocked. Mostly because Angela felt that if anyone would know what she feared, that humanity would never change, it would be this man. She now understood that look in his eyes. The one she had seen when they first met.

Adam started to pace. "Our families can repopulate this world and it will be good again. Together, we can do this – the hard choice for the greater good, for our children, for their children, for all the generations of this earth. You've said it yourself Arthur, a dozen times, the ends justify the means --I have a plan, once we set it in motion, it can save the world – I guarantee that." He stopped and looked at them. "Will you join me? Will you help me save the world?"

There was a large clap of thunder.

* * *

**Angela & Arthur Petrellis**

Manhattan

_Three weeks later_

November 2, 1977

* * *

"Oh god!" Angela woke up in a cold sweat."What have we done!? What have we done!?" She was finally seeing how wrong it all was. Her dreams were telling her and her gut was warning her, it all had to be stopped. Adam was wrong. She had followed him too blindly. She wanted it too badly. And now it was time to fix it. The cult of Adam would finally end. If it wasn't too late.

Angela woke Arthur and confessed her dream to him and although he agreed with her it was solely her choice to make the call. It was her change of heart that changed the course of history. Just like so many times in the future, it would be a Petrellis' change of heart that would save the world.

"Kaito," she told him breathlessly over the phone. "It's Adam. He's on his way to release the virus, you must stop him..."

Kaito called in the guards and the world was saved. Adam was found fighting with Victoria in her lab over a certain strain of the virus, the Shanti virus, the supposed cure. A strain of the virus that if Adam had not been stopped, would have killed them all.

* * *

**The 12**

_Primatech Research _

Hartsdale, NY

* * *

Kaito stood in the main office at Primatech Research, which would one day become Bob's office, but was now his. He looked out from his desk at his eleven cohorts; important decisions were at hand. Kaito slid a single paper to the front of his desk. "This paper makes Adam's incarceration official and binding. We all agree he is dangerous and should be locked away. I ask for a show for hands for a yay vote..."

Charles and Harry raised their hands first. Charles was right, inside Harry was a serious man. Arthur and Angela looked at each other and raised their hands together. Suzanne, raised her hand with a tear in her eye. Paula, Carlos and Bob were next, followed by Maury. The final hand was Daniels'. He knew he had to agree with the group, not to appear as a sympathizer, although Daniel now knew Adam had gone too far. Daniel slowly raised his hand, shamefully.

"Then it is agreed." Kaito stamped the letter and signed it.

The five people in the room who had helped Adam with his plan still said nothing - whether they still believed in Adam or not, they kept their secrets to themselves.

"I say blow his head off," came a voice from the doorway.

Everyone turned to see Victoria standing there. "I_ said_...I say why don't we just blow his head off." Victoria had a bandage on her left cheek from where Adam had sliced her with one of her instruments, as she struggled to protect the virus from him – as she had struggled to save the world.

"That's inhuman!" Suzanne exclaimed.

"Who said Adam was human?" Victoria trilled.

"We don't even know if that would kill him?" Arthur chimed in.

"That's why we _try_." Victoria made her way into the center of the room. She was at her fiery best, a color rarely seen on her, but that would soon become commonplace with age.

"And who among us, could do that to a friend?" Daniel spoke up.

"I thought that's why we hired people." Victoria's voice seethed with bitterness beyond her years.

"We all agree that Adam has gone off the deep end." Charles chimed in. "But, I don't think any one of us could condone – could say he deserves to die for it."

"Then you're a fool, Charles." Victoria almost spit in his face. "You're all fools."

Victoria pulled a piece of paper from her fist. "This is my resignation. I'm officially gone.

She handed it to Kaito, who took it reluctantly. "Don't come after me, I just want to be left alone and you can all do whatever the hell you want to, I for sure can't stop you." Victoria walked toward the door to leave, but paused – they were all standing in her way. The group parted and let Victoria pass. She walked the gauntlet toward the door as they all looked at her silently.

"Victoria,' Charles called after her. "We all believed in Adam –" he looked around the room, "Maybe some more blindly than others, but what is most important now is that we are all on the right course. Don't leave us, Victoria. We can still make a difference."

Kaito called to her, "Victoria, please."

"Destroy the virus, " she said bitingly. It was her final test to the group.

Angela interjected quickly, "We destroy the virus and it's our last chance at finding a cure."

Victoria and Angela caught eyes in a deadly stare.

Linderman stepped forward. "Certain people with power need to be stopped."

Victoria looked him over. "Do they now?" she said sarcastically with a bitter tone in her voice. When she reached the doorway she turned.

"I am sorry it had to end like this." she half smiled. "Maybe in the future, we'll meet under better circumstances." She held back her tears. "I just can't be a part of this. Not anymore."

As Adam was officially put in the cell he would occupy for the next thirty years, no one was happy that night. The sadness was palpable.

Arthur and Angela held hands in their living room, saying nothing. Harry and Suzanne smoked a joint over at Charles' place, while he listened to Jazz and Paula sat at his feet drinking a glass of red wine, while across town Maury and Bob joined an all night poker game and drank the night away. That night Suzanne would let Harry make love to her, but never again. Carlos ordered another round at his local bar and bummed another cigarette off a man named Grey, who sat behind him. Carlos 'wife sat at home, newly pregnant, wondering where her husband was. Kaito told Adam's new bride that her husband was dead. And Daniel Linderman actually cried for the belief that he had betrayed his friend, his mentor, to save his own skin. Linderman promised himself he would make it up to him Adam one day; how he didn't know.

That night Angela feel asleep in Arthur's arms and they were closer than they had been for years, both physically and mentally. That night Angela dreamt that Nathan was the President of the United States. Was it a metaphor or the truth she wondered?

And Angela couldn't help but get the lyrics of an Elton John song out of her head. A song she had liked to listened to when it all started. A song she had listen to for merely the music, but now the lyrics were coming through, overshadowing the melody.

_There's a joke and I know it very well  
It's one of those that I told you long ago  
Take my word I'm a madman don't you know_

_The ground's a long way down but I need more_.

And she wondered if Adam had really been the madman or had she. The madness had taken hold of her and taken her over.

_Once a fool had a good part in the play  
If it's so would I still be here today  
It's quite peculiar in a funny sort of way  
They think it's very funny everything I say  
Get a load of him, he's so insane  
You better get your coat dear  
It looks like rain_

It was time to grow up, if she hadn't already -- it was just official now. "It was only fair," as Arthur had said. But, this had nothing to do with fairness. Nothing in life is fair.

And the war kept on raging and the work got harder and they all got older and Angela clung to the idea that Nathan might be the one to save them all. That perhaps her dream about Nathan was the way to keep him away from the front lines. She didn't know what it all meant yet, but she knew it was a start. Her only son would lead the world and perhaps do what his parents felt they were failing at, "Saving the world."

_  
Is the nightmare black  
or are the windows painted  
Will they come again next week  
Can my mind really take it_?

–_Elton John "Madman Across the Water" 1972_

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Peter


	10. Chapter Nine: Peter

Chapter Nine

Angela/Arthur, Nathan (11/12 years old), Peter

* * *

**Angela and Arthur Petrelli**

Manhattan

1979

* * *

She'd seen him die. Dead, right in front of her, she was sure of it, but there he was standing in her foyer. Nathan was asleep; he would know nothing of his father's near-death experience against his foe, a foe just as deadly as Sylar. A widow at thirty-three was not something Angela had ever thought she'd be, even after all the bitterness and lone years between them. She had grown from a girl to a woman in his presence. He was the father of her child and the first man she had ever given her heart to. And even though she had found herself in love with Kaito, only a few years earlier, she had ended it, for the sake of her family. It was now just another regret keeping her lonely at night.

She had that look of shock, the same look she'd have when her son Peter came back to her from the dead or when her son Nathan would be healed. It was a miracle. A miracle Angela should have been used to by now, in the few years since they had all found each other, but it was still shocking. It also showed Angela how much she still loved him. How much she would miss him if he were gone.

Angela wore a long white nightgown and when she walked slowly down the stairs it flowed behind her like a train. Arthur walked toward her in his own state of shock as if he hadn't seen her in years, and figuratively it was true. Near death, or even coming back from the dead, can shake a man to his core and show him what is most important to him. To Arthur it was his family – it was Angela and Nathan.

Angela's mind raced back to the night's events, just hours before.

* * *

**The 12**

The DeveauxBuilding

_Three Hours Earlier_

* * *

Like so many times, Angela was caught in the line of fire without any way to protect herself or her family. As strong as she was now - as smart, wily and commanding she could be when she entered a room - in the world of abilities, Angela had to relay on others to protect her and she hated that. It was also something she would never forget. There are things that change in a woman when she can't protect herself, when she can't protect her son from what goes bump in the night. When the bogeyman hides in the dark spaces of the evening. When the bogeyman is real. For all her skills, Angela was no match for men who could walk through walls and women who could shoot fire. These were the only time Angela felt helpless again, and it was the main time she worried for her son and his future. How would a flying man come out of this world unscathed?

"Get her out of here!" Arthur yelled to Charles over the noise of the fight.

"No, I'm staying!" she demanded. Angela fought the war in a different way, the only way she knew how; with determination. But her determination wasn't always enough.

* * *

**Charles and Angela**

The Petrelli Estate

_One Hour Later_

* * *

"He's dead, isn't he?" Angela questioned, tears streaming down her face, Arthur's blood on her hands and dress.

Charles walked to Arthur's bedside table and took something from the bottom drawer.

"Stay here, I'll be back to check on you." He handed her a company issue gun. "Take this, you know how to use it."

Angela nodded her head. She took the gun.

"I'll find Linderman." He replaced the clip of his own gun and set it in a holster under his brown leather jacket.

"Linderman can't raise the dead, " she demanded.

Charles looked at her and he knew she was right; Arthur was dead.

"Just stay here. Wash the blood off your hands."

"That I don't think I can do," she muttered.

"I have to go. Take a breath, Angela." And then Charles lied. "He'll be fine. Now I have to go."

"Don't lie to me, I know you too well." Her eyes were filled with tears, but she would not allow them to drop, she would not be weak. Angela had to be strong; it was her only defensive power. But she could never lie to Charles, just like he could never lie to her. The truth was Charles didn't care if she cried. He never saw it as her weakness; he saw it as human.

Charles kissed her on the top of the head and he was gone, as he had done so many times before. And then Angela was left alone.

* * *

**Angela & Arthur Petrelli**

Manhattan

_The Present_ _1979_

* * *

When Angela reached the bottom step of her staircase, Arthur was standing in front of her. She looked down at him, tears streamed down her face. She ran her hand along his cheek as if to check that he was real. And without words she wrapped her entire body around him and he held her against him. He had missed that and Arthur Petrelli started to cry. It was only the third time in his life that Arthur had done so. And they kissed. They kissed passionately for the first time in two years. And that night Angela and Arthur conceived Peter.

What Angela remembered most was how it made her feel. The power — how it felt in her hot little hands and it wasn't even her hands that wielded it. It was beyond the power of beauty. This was different. This wasn't just smiles and admiring glances, doors opened and tabs paid for. It wasn't just men looking at her in a way that made her husband glad he was the one who had her, even if he forgot to pay attention to her. It was all different – this was bigger, it was something that she now had control over and control is the greatest form of power.

It was the look in their eyes when she entered a room, the respect, that power, both of them received, the entire family. The regal couple. Together, oh what children they would have. She loved it. Oh, how she loved it. She was blinded by her youth and her eyes glowed at the addiction of it and all she wanted was more. She saw the look in her own eyes, in Arthur's eyes, in all of them and would one day see that look in her son Nathan's eyes as well. In Nathan it would grow from brash young imaginary power to the power he used in the courtroom. It was a necessary evil, needed at some degree to survive the outside world. Angela and Arthur had fallen into it and it made them drunk, drunk with the high. Money, sex and power, it's all the same – once you get that taste, one learns to enjoy it. And that's when it has you, when the power has you in its all too human hands. That's when it controls you, or you control it, when you need that fix -- the fix controls it all. Soon, the fix controls you.

And when she finally woke up from it all, like some forgotten dream all that was left in her and Arthur's mind were the ruins of their spoils and it was nothing – nothing but quicksand that never ended. And there was no getting out.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_Four weeks later_

* * *

Angela was just finishing getting dressed when she felt a sudden kick of nausea come over her. Was a dream coming on, she wondered? She hadn't felt sick or passed out from a dream in years. She had grown past that a long time ago.

She took a step and it felt like her whole body took a leap. Her head was spinning. She had to stop for a moment. She took a deep breath and walked a few steps into her bathroom, gripping the edge of her marble sink - it felt cold and soothing. She turned on the faucet and cupped her hands under the water, sending a few handfuls into her mouth, but it didn't seem to help. She leaned her head forward and her body back, taking in deeper breaths. And then it hit her. Angela caught herself in the mirror and she knew that look, she remembered this feeling, in her head, in her body, down to her feet. She put her hand to her stomach and slightly grinned in shock, her mouth half open.

"Peter..." she said softly. He had finally come. Her emotions were about to get the better of her, but before her eyes could fill with tears, her body got that feeling again.

"Ma!" Nathan yelled from the hallway.

Angela jumped. "One moment, Nathan." She took a breath and lowered her head. She felt dizzy and knew if she moved a muscle, she might be sick. It subsided but her headache was unbearable.

"Ma!" An eleven-year-old Nathan appeared in the doorway of the bathroom.

"Nathan!" she snapped at him. "I said one moment. And what have I told you about yelling in this house!"

"Pop wants to see you." He wasn't sure what he had done wrong. Everyone yelled in his house, even when they themselves told others not to – it was just done. Children often learn from actions and not words.

"Tell him, when I'm ready, I'll be down," she snapped again.

Nathan got scared and ran out.

After a moment Angela found herself sliding, back first, down the front of the sink. She wasn't sure if it was the morning sickness or the shock that after almost fifteen odd years, Peter would be arriving.

* * *

**Arthur & Angela Petrelli**

* * *

"I'm pregnant." Angela just blurted it out to Arthur in his study as he sat behind his desk.

He tossed his reading glasses onto his desk and looked at her. "How is that possible?" Then he paused and nodded his head. "Linderman... " He caught her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know why. It was two years ago. We hardly talked... I wasn't getting pregnant. I thought maybe it didn't work."

"So... "Arthur stood. "This is Peter?" he asked oddly, gesturing towards her stomach.

"Yes..."

"I thought we decided. I thought we a_greed _bringing more children into this thing – into this life wasn't a good idea, Angela." He put his hands in his pockets.

"I didn't do this by myself, Arthur..." Her voice was powerful, but not demanding.

Arthur counted back and remembered when the event must have occurred. It had to have been the night he had been brought back to life with Adam's blood. The night Arthur remembered why he loved her, and why his family was what was most important to him – it was his re-birth. What better way to signify it but with the birth of another child? His eyes got wet for a moment.

"No, no..." He shook his head.. "You're right. I'm sorry..." He walked around his desk. "I'm sorry..." He took her in his arms and kissed the top of his head.

"He doesn't have to be part of this, Arthur. I can make sure that happens. I know it."

Arthur parted from Angela and looked at her straight on. "If it his density to be one of us, well then...who are you– who are we to stop him?"

"We're his parents – we will protect him."

"You know that's not always true..."

Angela gave him a stern, unhappy look and walked away from him. When she reached the door she turned back. "I'll make it true. Until I can no longer do anything more."

"I thought we learned we can't avoid our destiny, Angela."

"These are our sins, Arthur. We mortgaged our souls to protect them, our boys - to save the world. What's one more sin in the fire, if it means they don't have to live with what we've done? Promise me, Arthur. Just promise me we'll try."

Arthur lowered his head; it felt heavy. He looked up at her with his eyes. "It's still no guarantee, Angela."

"So be it." She nodded her head slightly. "At least I will have tried." She started to leave, but Arthur stopped her before she could exit.

"Angela..." His call caused his wife to look toward him "You know Linderman... like Adam's blood it doesn't always heal everything – you may not be as good as new-- as good as you were before Nathan was born, yes but... It was never easy for you to carry a child. Nothing says this pregnancy won't be as hard on you as all the others." He looked at her with such concern.

"I can handle it," she said with all her power and assurance. And she left the room.

And although he knew she could, he still worried for her and as much as he tried to keep his distance, he worried for his unborn child. A child who already had a name: Petrelli. And it would be a brand that would carry him his entire life. A brand that would seal his fate.

* * *

**Nathan, Angela & Peter Petrelli**

Manhattan

December 23, 1979

* * *

Nathan was there when Angela went into labor. They were about to leave to look at the Christmas windows on Fifth Avenue. Angela was so shocked when her water broke two weeks early that she knocked over the flowers in the foyer, sending the water and the glass to the ground. Blood trickled down her white knuckles. It scared Nathan half to death; he had just turned twelve. And when Arthur never arrived at the hospital, it was Nathan at her side.

The second time Angela gave birth was just as difficult as the first, maybe more so, but she was a different woman. She was an older woman. A wiser woman. A woman not new to pain. Arthur was right, it was a hard labor, just as hard as her pregnancy had been. She fought as hard as she would fight for Peter the rest of her life; until she felt there was nothing more she could do.

It wasn't until the final moments that Nathan was ushered in to the delivery room, hours later. He had asked his mother if he could be there for his brother's birth and she agreed. Since Nathan would end up being more of a father to her son then his own father would it was fitting.

And it was nice, this time, to be alone, without her husband. She wasn't frighten, but, she wasn't alone.

Angela breathed and pushed, breathed and pushed and screamed. At one point, Nathan took her hand and squeezed it. Angela was shocked by the gesture, but she held onto his hand as tight as she could. The drugs were beginning to kick in, but Angela wasn't sure if it was the drugs or the fatigue and exhaustion that was seeping her energy away from her. It was then that a cry was heard and it wasn't from Angela, it was from Peter. Angela cried with joy and delight as Peter was lifted into her view. After so many years they had finally met. Peter Petrelli was one with this earth.

The embillicord was cut and Angela leaned in to Nathan before he could run away from her.

"You are his older brother, Nathan. You will take care of him, you will protect him, that is the role you will play in his life."

"Yes, Ma..." he said, almost fearing her.

"That's my boy..." She nodded her head.

"Can I?" Nathan asked with enthusiasm.

Angela nodded her head and Nathan ran from her side to take a closer look at Peter.

"Have you decided on a name?" The nurse asked Angela as Peter was washed and wrapped in a blue blanket.

"Peter," she smiled with half her strength. "Peter Petrelli."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Angela and Arthur push forward, making plans for their new agenda: saving their sons from the madness they created... or by doing so will they only drag their sons deeper into it?


	11. Chapter Ten:

**Characters**: Adam, Angela, Arthur, Linderman, Nathan & Peter.

**Notes**: I don't have my usual beta, I hope all is well. If you find errors that disrupt your enjoyment of the story please send me a message offline with the error to be changed.

And please review, even if it is one word. If you don't review I won't know if people are out there reading and want me to continue - or even how to improve as a writer. Thank you.

* * *

**The Petrelli Home**

_Thirty Years Ago_

* * *

Angela remembers how one day she came home to find Adam, Maury, Linderman, Paula., Bob and of course her husband, waiting for her in her living room; it was 1977.

Arthur handed Angela a business card. "What do you think?"

The card stated "Primatech Paper since 1962."

"It's the front." Arthur brimmed with pride. "A real working paper company, as far as everyone else can see."

Adam grinned from ear to ear. Arthur saw it and smirked back.

"1962?" she asked and flicked the card toward him, letting it hang between her two fingers.

"All part of the game, my dear..." Daniel smiled. "All part of the game..." He took a few steps toward her and he and Arthur caught eyes. They were all very proud of themselves.

"Hummmm," Angela smirked. She looked down at the card for a moment. "I like it." She raised her eyebrows and handed the card back to her husband. "I like it a lot." Her voice had the music of possibilities in it – of what was to come.

Adam was full of excitement. "The top floor will be the paper company, three floors down, as in the blue prints will have the good stuff, jail cells, laboratory – enough room for Victoria to fully do her research, not like the _sarcophagus _we set up for her at Kirby Plaza. And thanks to Bob here, all the funding we need..._indefinitely_." He nodded his head at Bob, who smiled back.

"Good then. When are we open for business?" Angela asked.

"As we speak, my dear..." Adam smiled. "As we speak."

Paula folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "Kaito and Victoria tell us they can set up shop in three days. She's already started her research up again, I'm told."

Angela was pleased, so was Adam.

"We all have our roles to play." Adam echoed one of his famous lines with a glint in his eye.

And the front began.

* * *

**Angela & Peter Petrelli**

Manhattan

1979

* * *

Angela Petrelli sat up in bed, holding her newborn son Peter in her arms, nursing him with a joy in her eyes she had lost so long ago. This was the son she promised to do right by. The son she had dreamed about, seen, known, met. He was a good man, a kind man, his heart made him who he was. He could be, as she wished one night over her six-month pregnant stomach – the only man who loved her unconditionally. Perhaps, he would be the one to save her. He was her early Christmas present and she would always regard him as such; he was her second gift from god.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in..." Angela cradled Peter in her arms as she buttoned up her nightgown with her right hand.

"Merry Christmas, Angela..." Daniel Linderman walked into the room dressed in a nice suit.

"Daniel..." Angela wasn't expecting to see him.

Daniel Linderman, after coming into money of his own, had been making a name for himself in the years since Adam Monroe had been incarcerated, perhaps not a good name, but a name none-the-less. Wanting to build an empire of his own, Daniel Linderman, was in the middle of building another casino, this time a legitimate one, in the deserts of Nevada. And while the Petrellis were quite known in New York City society, Linderman would soon be known nationally, outshining Arthur in just the way that pleased him. Linderman would say it was all about being the best, but the truth was he never really got over how Arthur had treated him in Vietnam. How Arthur had browbeaten Daniel into doing terrible things, by Daniel's estimation, by lording his power over Linderman, his strength - at a time when Daniel was just a young weak boy. The wrong that Daniel Linderman felt the world had put upon him was something he carried under the surface of his skin like a splinter.

Linderman smiled at Angela. "I brought a gift for the lad, I left it downstairs under the tree."

"I thought you were in Las Vegas."

"Change of plans..." He walked toward her. "May I?"

"Of course..." Angela had a stern face but she was cautious.

Daniel walked closer to Peter, looking at his small face, his brown eyes and his huge mass of black hair. "Well, he's a Petrelli for sure..." he caught Angela's eyes. "Not, that I would think otherwise... "

"Of course."

Daniel sat on the side of the bed. "Are you dreaming, Angela?"

She looked at Daniel hard and cold. "Nooo.."

"If you dreamt what he could do, you'd tell me wouldn't you, Angela?" He rested his fingers slowly along the top of Peter's head.

Angela tried not to act like she wanted to recoil. "Of course. You would be the second person I'd tell."

"Of course." Linderman echoed. "You haven't had the bomb dream, again?"

"Not for a long time now." She seemed content in that.

"Well, good then. Perhaps we stopped it. Good." He stood. "Congratulations, Angela."

Arthur walked into the bedroom and Daniel turned toward him.

"I was just congratulating you and Angela on the birth of another Petrelli son. " He smiled. "One day they will lead us all."

"Perhaps..." Arthur said sternly.

"Perhaps..." Linderman spoke with a bit more fun and optimism. "I must be going." He leaned in and kissed Angela on the cheek and she let him as if nothing was wrong. "I'll let myself out." Linderman smiled at the couple and exited the Petrelli bedroom.

Angela still believed in Daniel Linderman and thought him to be, at his core, a caring and smart man – he had been good to her family. But Angela also knew their agendas were beginning to sever down different paths and she had to protect her own interests first. "When you put everyone else first, you end up last," was a saying she found herself uttering a lot these days; life had taught her that.

Arthur lowered his head and gazed up at Angela with his eyes. The two caught haunting looks as if they were keeping a secret. Angela held in her tears and kissed her son on his forehead. It was time to start a new front.

Angela had a dream that night. She hadn't been dreaming while she was pregnant and it worried her. A few dreams here and there, but nothing like before. Her dreams seemed barren. Peter slept in his crib. She was alone. The room seemed cold and drafty. It was dark, night, twilight maybe, she wasn't sure. The window to her bedroom was closed with two large panels. She felt drawn to it, the window, and when she got closer she could see the panels were two white and dirty shutters. She tugged at her robe to secure it closer around her, to keep out the cold, before lifting her slender fingers around the middle edges of the shutter doors and opening them with a single gesture of two hands.

There was a light, bright and stunning – it came from far off in the distance of the city. Then all of a sudden from below the towers of buildings came a rumbling cloud of grey, ripping through its surroundings and bursting into a mushroom cloud on its way toward her. But Angela couldn't move, she was frozen. All she could do was watch as it all came tumbling toward her, faster and faster – she was helpless. It hit her like a fiery mass, searing her flesh and running over ever pore of her being, as if it was actually happening.

And she woke up screaming, thinking her flesh was still burning, feeling the ashes of her heart and swearing she smelled the smokey air. Her body sprung up in bed with a jolt. The baby started to cry. Arthur almost leaped up next to her. He repeated her name over and over again as he couldn't stop her from screaming. Angela put her hands to her arms to be sure she was still there, that her skin was still attached. Her breath become more labored as her screaming stopped.

Arthur rubbed his hand over her back, soothing and calming her. "Its alright. It's okay. Its okay. Shusshhh," he calmed her like a child.

Angela sat up in her bed, arching her body forward, sweat dripping down her face, and her long hair falling in front of her like ivy. She coughed and took deep breaths as Arthur continued to lovingly and warmly caress her back with his hand. When her breathing had subsided, Arthur stood and walked to Peter's bassinet. His room wasn't ready yet and Angela was more than happy to spend Peter's first few weeks and days of life with him at her side. Peter's cries ceased and Arthur returned from the bathroom with a glass of water.

"Here, drink this." He handed her the glass of water. He stood while she drank it. After Angela drank the glass of water Arthur sat on the bed next to her and waited for her to look at him, but she didn't. "What did you see, Angela? What did you see?"

"It was the bomb..." she slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were glazed over and her hair was stringy with sweat. "It's a man." She took another deep breath. "It's a man." She hadn't seen it, but she somehow knew it to be true.

* * *

**The 12**

Kirby Plaza

* * *

"A man? How is that possible?" Suzanne asked bewildered. She sat to Charles' right around a half moon black table at the group's Kirby Plaza offices.

They were having one of their seasonal meetings - everyone was there. Even Kaito had come in from Japan. He had recently married and his wife was expecting their first child. Angela knew it would be a girl; Kaito did not want to know.

"Some things should be left up to the surprise, " he told her with a sly smirk.. "I would like my future to be what I make of it." And his eyes seemed to grin at her. She had never seen him so happy and she knew he was in love.

Angela was jolted back into the current moment as Daniel made his way around the table and his cohorts.

"Possible?" Daniel questioned Suzanne's comment. "Look at what we can do. Is a man who is capable of being a nuclear bomb _really _out of the realm of possibility."

"It just seems so..." Suzanne searched for the right words. "Man made."

"It's not like we don't know people who can do things invented by man. It's the natural order of things. If this mutation takes on what the body needs at the time, or takes cues from one's personality... who's to say the mutation won't key into the progress of the world and what man and woman..." He grinned at Paula, "can do...I think we're all examples of that, don't you think?"

"Talk about being a hot head, " Harry joked, but without a smile. His humor had become darker and more pulled in.

"I thought we decided the bomb was a metaphor?" questioned Bob.

"I don't dream in metaphors anymore..." Angela joined in; her voice was flat. "Well, hardly ever."

"And how long have you been having this dream?" Suzanne wondered.

"At least more than twenty years." Angela's eyes were stern and sure.

"Twenty years...how is that possible!?"Carlos exclaimed. "All the things we've changed – it's never that far away—"

"They are..." Angela pointed out. Her eyes were tried from her restless dreams at night and her days and nights with a newborn at home. "They just _evolved_."

"Maybe we can't change this one," Paula threw in with a sense of disgust.

"It sure feels like it..." Angela rose and turned her back to the group . She walked a few steps to a large window and looked out.

Daniel walked up to Angela and put his hand on her shoulder. Angela put her hand on his without looking at him while Daniel looked at the group.

"This is the one we keep trying to stop, right?" Arthur threw in. "The one thing that all our actions will stop and nothing changes." He was frustrated.

Charles stood. "I don't like this tone, not one bit. I think we're all just tired."

Paula stood."Speak for yourself, Charles." She took a cigarette out of her purse and looked at him. "I need a break." She opened a glass large door and walked out onto the terrace.

Daniel looked at the proceedings agreeing with everyone, but saying nothing. He was gauging the situation. He would wait his turn to speak.

Peter was always a happy baby. And Angela seemed to be a happy mother. Nathan remarked on it when he was an adult, wondering what had changed.

"I was going through a lot when you were younger," Angela told him one day. "I'm sorry for that. I guess you didn't have a proper childhood."

Peter was different. She was a different person, an older woman. And although most women her age were just getting married, feeling unsure and new about their lives and their surroundings, Angela had a sense of confidence over the other girls her age, as if she were decades their senior. While they were all starting their first life, Angela was starting her second, a new beginning of sorts. And while Arthur wondered if his new son represented his own, "re-birth," Angela was sure he represented hers. She and Arthur promised themselves Peter wouldn't be a part of it all. They understood long ago that they would have to mortgage their souls to save the world; to make it a better place for their children, but that didn't mean they would take their children down with them. In both cases they understood the ends justify the means.

Nathan's future was taken care of, he could take care of himself, at least in the real world, but Angela was concerned that reality would eat up her son Peter, until there was nothing left. She knew Nathan could have any destiny he wanted; that whatever he would do with his life he would cast a large shadow. Valedictorian, Dean's list, she knew all these things were in Nathan's future just by looking at him; by knowing him. Her concern for Peter was that he couldn't survive in either worlds and it became her main focus to protect him.

Peter was a sensitive boy. Way too sensitive for Arthur's taste, as Arthur strived to understand his youngest son better. But, Arthur was older, set in his ways, and his young son bewildered him to no end. A good student, not great, Arthur felt the boy was smart, he just wasn't applying himself enough. He needed to work harder. Get out of his head more. For Peter was more content looking out windows and thinking of the future than spending the day at the office with his father.

"He's still young yet," Angela would tell him. "And don't assume he will want to follow in your footsteps like Nathan does."

"You coddle that boy too much, " he'd retort. And it was true. "You need to let him go."

Angela wanted to keep the ways of the big bad world away from her sensitive son. She never wanted him, or Nathan for that matter, to encountered the same evils of life she had encounter. And perhaps, Peter, her baby, she kept too close to her breast; held to tight on the apron strings. But, Peter seemed to understand her the way no one else did. The way Arthur understood Nathan and Nathan understood Peter. Peter was her comfort, her miracle child, the one she had dreamed of.

Nathan had been what had come too early, confused her and started her life on its path. She could not love him any less, but Peter, just like his name, was her rock. Nathan grew up a cocky, smart and strong man, just like his father – not to mention stubborn as all hell. Nathan was a man much like his father, who had a deep feeling heart, but fought it off with his shark- like mentality; a hard shell – a front. Nathan soon grew to have little patience for his mother's attention or conversation. He was blinded by youth and hero worship for his father; Angela saw it in his eyes. It was the same look Angela saw in her son Peter's eyes toward his brother Nathan. The same look that she once had in her own eyes, and she prayed it would not be Peter's downfall, as it had been hers.

"If you don't show him the ways of the world he'll never learn!" Arthur demanded to his wife. "We can't stop anything—you can't keep him from his enviable density."

But, Arthur was only frustrated by the son he didn't understand. Arthur was a man who held in his feelings, like any man of his generation, an alpha dog– he didn't care who he had to push out of the way to get what he wanted, what he needed. All the things Arthur had taught his son Nathan by words or example. Arthur was a good man, he meant well, but Peter and his father just had conflicting personalities - and as much as Arthur hated thinking it, Nathan would always be his favorite.

"He's his mother's boy, " Arthur would grumble behind a rumpled copy of the _New York Times_

And that was meant in more ways than one. Arthur and Peter would always be at odds with each other for the rest of Arthur's life. Something Arthur would regret and Peter wouldn't understand. Peter was just too young to understand it all. Peter was the dreamer, the good one who saw good in everything, while his father was pragmatic, the realist, demanding that Peter see the world for what it was: unforgiving. It was just who they were. And what came out as anger was only Arthur's concern for what the big bad world would do to such a boy. What_ his_ world could do to him – his boy.

Peter was weak, both parents would agree, but Angela would tell herself her life wasn't the life Peter would lead -- and so she pushed Nathan out in front. Nathan just took up more space; it was his destiny. Peter, Angela felt she needed to protect more and perhaps that was her problem. And perhaps Arthur was jealous? How could he compete with Peter for Angela's affection? Maybe he was jealous of the bond he saw between the boy and his mother, the same way Angela was jealous of the bond she saw between Arthur and Nathan. All Arthur knew was that even at a very young age he worried for his son's future just as much as Angela did; just not for the same reasons.

And then there were the times that solidified all their fears. When the madness was literally creeping toward their doorstep. On their way to their home, on their way towards their family.

Arthur retrieved one of his guns from a drawer in his living room and tossed aside the white cloth it had been incased in. He made sure the clip was full and set it firmly in the holster under his jacket. He did it like most men buttered their toast.

Upstairs, Arthur took a second gun, this time from his bedside drawer and secured it in a second holster opposite the other. He locked eyes with Angela and she knew what to do. She swept into Peter's room and lifted the almost two-year-old boy quickly out of his crib and darted straight for the hallway in one powerful move.

"Nathan!" Angela yelled for her son. "Nathan?" she called to him. She rushed around the upstairs of the house looking for him like there was no time to lose – there wasn't. Angela held Peter on her hip just as she had once done with Nathan as a child. Her state was hurried yet controlled.

Finally Angela found a thirteen, almost fourteen, year-old Nathan in the hallway in front of his bedroom. Arthur appeared around a corner behind her when Angela found Nathan.

"Nathan, come," she said commandingly, putting her hand out with great force. "We have to go to the basement -- a hurricane is coming." She shook her hand for him to come and take it.

"Do what your mother says, boy," Arthur reprimanded him.

Confused Nathan walked forward toward his parents.

"Take my hand!" Angela said earnest and strong; she had urgency in her voice.

Nathan paused where he stood. "No," he retorted feeling he was too old to hold his mother's hand.

Angela's face grew angry and stern as she took large steps over to Nathan, grabbing his hand with full force. "You do what you are_ told_! " she commanded her son with her most gravitas of voices. A voice he would fear as a child, but ignore as an adult.

Angela dragged Nathan down the hall at a quick pace.

"Where are we going?" Nathan whined.

"The basement, Nathan, I told you." Angela answered with much assertion.

"Isn't that for tornados?" Nathan queried.

"Don't question your mother, Nathan." Arthur scolded his son as he rushed his family in front of him and down the stairs.

Angela raced down the stairs at a quicken pace as if there was a fire behind them. As quickly as Angela could run with a toddler in one arm and her son Nathan's hand in her other.

As the family reached the foyer Angela guided her children hastily toward the door under the stairs, while her husband kept up behind them.

Arthur spoke sharply. "I put a call into Maury, he's on his way."

Angela's eyes almost popped out of her head as they reached the basement door. "Without him here, they'll find us for sure," she said with a hushed husky voice filled with fright for her children.

"He'll be here," Arthur said harshly.

Angela just looked at him with a fearful panic in her eyes.

"Go!" Arthur shouted and pointed toward the basement door.

Angela let go of Nathan's hand and opened the basement door as quickly as she could while her husband disappeared from sight. Angela turned to Nathan, but he didn't move.

"Nathan," Angela called to her son.

"What about, Pop?"

"Your father will be fine. He can take care of himself," she snapped. "Come!" And she snatched Nathan's hand and whisked her family into the basement, locking the door behind her, like it would matter, and barreling down the stairs. It was very dark.

"The lights, Ma!?" Nathan questioned.

"No time for lights, Nathan."

Peter started to let out a few cries, already keying into his mother's silent hysteria, as Angela and her boys hit the basement floor. "Shhhhh." She soothed Peter by setting her lips on the side of his head and he quieted down. "There ya go, baby," she said softly. She was thankful he was such a content child.

Angela carted her family into a far off corner of the basement. It was dusty and small. She crouched down and made Nathan sit beside her while she put her arm around him, holding her family close to her; Peter sat on her lap. She held the baby close to her with her right hand and arm, holding his small head against her cheek, the fineness of his baby hair brushing up against her skin and reminding her how young he was for all of this --both her sons were. Now all they had to do was wait.

And when the roof shook and dust fell from the ceiling, Angela attempted not to show her fear, so not to scare her boys. Still Nathan saw the look in his mother's eyes and he took her hand for a moment. They all couldn't help but look up. Look up and wait. And about after what seemed like hours, but had only been about forty minutes, the door to the basement crept open.

"Angela!?" Arthur's voice was heard.

"Oh, thank god." Angela whispered. "Down here!" she shouted. Angela raised herself up slowly being sure not to drop Peter.

The lights turned on and Arthur raced down the stairs. Angela's eyes brightened as she saw him and tears came to her eyes, yet did not fall.

"Is everyone alright?" Arthur asked.

"We're fine." Angela nodded her head. She took her free hand and ran her red finger nailed-fingers along Arthur's left cheek. She leaned in and kissed him. "We're fine." She saw a drop of blood by his ear and she wiped it away – behind the blood there was no wound.

Nathan saw the blood. "You alright, Pop?"

"I'm fine, son." He took the boy in a quick hug. Then Arthur Petrelli took his family back upstairs to their home.

The next day, Nathan found it odd that no one at school talked about the hurricane and when he got home that afternoon he was sure to ask his mother about it.

"Just because there wasn't a hurricane, doesn't mean you don't prepare for one." She told him pointedly. "I was only taking precautions for this family, Nathan. We were lucky it passed us by this time. Next time." She looked at him with love, yet spoke forcefully. "We may not be so lucky."

And Angela Petrelli was right. A storm was coming -- of another kind. And she knew this time she would be ready for it, as Nathan's destiny formed clearer and clearer in her mind. As she told Victoria, only a few years earlier, when the time came perhaps she would have a plan. She didn't have a full-fledged plan yet, but she now knew its skeleton frame. Which was that Angela would keep her children from the front lines at all costs and that started with her first born son -- the future President of the United States. It was all becoming clear to her in the present moment. Angela understood now and she would help to make it a reality, she didn't know how yet, but she would. At all costs, her son would save the world and she would save him. She would save them both. When the hurricane came again, Angela Petrelli would be ready.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Arthur visits Adam in jail and makes a decision that could impact his family's future forever

* * *

1982

* * *

Chapter Ten


	12. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Arthur, Angela, Adam, Bob, Peter (Five), Nathan (Seventeen)

**Notes:** I still don't have my regular beta (thank you sooo much 7bythe7sea) so, if there are any glaring mistakes please PM me and let me know

* * *

**1985**

* * *

Angela Petrelli spent her thirtieth birthday soaking wet climbing up the side of a building in the rain by a grappling line. On her 34th birthday, she was crawling her way out of a dirty marsh. And on the eve of Angela Petrelli's 39th Birthday, she died for the first time.

Peter was five and Nathan was seventeen.

Angela felt the pain seethe inside of her, there was so much blood, that's all she could remember, and she felt so weak, lifeless, as if she was just about to have another dream. Arthur was irate, demanding she hold on, but she couldn't, she wasn't even sure what to hold on to anymore. She could suddenly taste the blood in her mouth start to pour through her gums, and that was the last thing she remembered, until she woke up a day or so later on a hospital bed at Primatech Research, feeling just as weak, but without a scratch on her. They had to tell Angela she had died. She had no idea.

Arthur insisted she recover at home with her family.

Arthur helped her into the house. He supported her by her back and waist and held onto her slender fingers with his left hand, guiding her inside the house. When she entered the foyer Angela looked around a bit dazed. She had that sick- to-your-stomach feeling one gets when you're woken up after you've just fallen asleep.

Nathan remembered how she wouldn't take anyone's gaze, her eyes darted around the room as if she wasn't sure where she was, and she looked pale and tired. She looked dead, little did he know. He had been home with Peter for three days, which wasn't unusual. Nathan took care of his brother when his parents were away, but up until that point it was the longest he had done so. Looking back the Petrellis always seem to leave town with very little notice. It was one of the many reasons their boys were so close – for Nathan had been like a third parent, sometimes even a first.

Peter ran from the steps and past Nathan, who stood at the back of the foyer watching his parents, unsure what to do next. Nathan couldn't help but look at his mother with a stare of fear as memories of his childhood danced in his head. Nathan caught his father's eyes and Nathan knew he would be there for his father in this time of crisis, for his mother. He knew his father needed him.

Peter wrapped his little arms around his mother for dear life, it had been their longest separation, three days. He had no idea Angela Petrelli had been dead for almost two of them. She ran her fingers through his hair, but didn't look at him.

Nathan remembers being surprised at that. She didn't look at Peter, he wasn't even sure if she knew where she was. She didn't. Angela had been dead longer than anyone at the Company who had been revived by Adam's blood; it was a record.

Angela Petrelli's body was too exhausted to do much of anything. Her husband and Nathan put Angela to bed in silence. Nothing was said, they just tended to her.

Finally, after Nathan and Arthur were done and Angela closed her eyes, Arthur turned to his son.

"What happened?" Nathan asked him.

"Put your brother to bed and we'll talk in the other room."

The following is how Nathan remembers the conversation.

"Pop?" Nathan asked as he entered his father's den, which was off the bedroom, and across from Peter's room. "Is she passing out again, I thought that was behind us?"

"Shhh." Arthur looked around and closed the door. "I don't want your brother —"

Nathan interrupted his father. "Pop, what happened?" Nathan was concerned.

Arthur started to circle the room. "Listen, kid..." He looked at his son. "She's fine, don't worry. She just needs her rest." He paused for a moment and stopped circling the room again " I didn't want to tell you this over the phone – your mother– she had a miscarriage."

Nathan was shocked. "She was pregnant?" Shocked that he had no idea. He knew she was still young enough.

"Almost three months. We didn't want to say anything to you boys until things were out of the woods." He paused and looked at his son straight out. "There's something we never told you...before you were born--your mother... it's always been very hard for her to carry a child. We almost lost you. She had two miscarriages before you were born. We both weren't even sure if she'd carry Peter to term."

"I didn't—"

"We just felt it was private."

"But, you're telling me this now?"

Arthur walked over to his son and gripped the boy's shoulder in a loving gesture. "Your mother lost a lot of blood this time – she's weak right now – not just emotionally, her entire body –it's exhausted. What she needs is rest and sleep. I don't want you to worry. Peter's too young to understand, but you're an adult now, you're my boy – you can handle this." Arthur nodded his head at him. " I need you to be here for her, for me – for Peter. That boy, he's only five, but he's a sensitive kid. He needs you to be here for him, for us – for your family." He paused. "Can you do that for me, Nathan?"

Nathan nodded his head.

"Thank you," he lightly tapped the side of Nathan's face. "I knew you'd come through for me."

Young Nathan nodded his head and smiled sheepishly before leaving the room.

This was just another example of how with half truths, Petrellis had no problem using each other to keep their secrets. The secrets had just become more important. The secrets now had the control. One day Angela would use her husband's past for the same purpose – to hide the truth, for she knew he would have done the same in her shoes.

That night, Arthur Petrelli sat by his wife's bedside. He sat there the entire night. At one point Nathan caught sight of his father sitting there, before standing at one point and caressing the side of his mother's face. He saw it as a loving gesture, but what he didn't know was that deep inside Arthur looked at his wife with only one thought in his head, he had again made a pact with the devil to save his family. And it would be something he would do, and had been already doing, many times, over and over again, it really didn't matter anymore.

Angela slept for two days almost and when she awoke she wanted to know what had happened. And her husband told her the tale.

It was getting harder and harder to get Adam Monroe to give blood. He would fight it, perhaps out of spite, perhaps out of his own sense of dignity, but he wasn't going to give up his power so easily. The last two times he almost escaped and it was deemed too much of a risk to the world to try anymore attempts toward that goal, at least in the near future. It was the first time the rumblings started, "if we could only find another regenerator."

"It's just not worth the risk!" Bob scolded Arthur in his office. "You of all people know about what is good for ourselves and what is for the _greater good_. Angela would agree. You're being selfish here. She's gone, Arthur! Let it go! "

"No. No." Arthur wouldn't take it. "I can't– I won't. I don't accept this!."

"I say you calm down. Linderman and Carlos are on their way."

"I won't wait." Arthur stormed out of Bob's office and Bob knew he couldn't stop him.

Arthur walked into Adam's cell and closed the door.

"Arthur?" Adam was shocked. "You've aged," he said it with all sincerity. "What a pity for you," he changed his demeanor to sarcasm.

"All I want is to talk." His voice was calm.

"Talk?"

Arthur took off his suit jacket to reveal his gun holster peaking out from beside his vest.

"Is that suppose to scare me?"

"Nothing in my _arsenal_ is going to scare you, Adam." His voice was hard and had a low timbre to it, it had no joy in it at all. "Believe me, I'm not here to scare you. I don't think I could." He adjusted his holster for a moment. "Of course...' He gestured out with his hands, " that doesn't mean I can't use it for my own sadistic purposes." He sauntered toward Adam for a moment. "I understand a bullet does pack a stinging _punch_ before you heal. I should know. A real _killjoy_, I believe."

"You're here to ask for my blood, aren't you?"

"I'm not asking for myself."

"Clearly," he retorted.

"Angela's dead," Arthur said pointedly.

"Good news or bad?" he replied sarcastically

Arthur gave Adam a deadly look, he wasn't in the mood for jokes.

Adam rolled his eyes half way toward the ceiling. "Bad news, then." Adam got serious. "I'm sorry. I really am, Arthur. Angela was – well she was Angela, wasn't she? But, I guess you're all running around like chickens with your heads cut off without your precious pre-cog. All of you need her."

"I need her."

Adam nodded his head, a little sarcastically, if that was possible.

"My children need her."

"Children?"

"We have two sons now."

"So Linderman's magic finally took hold."

"Peter's only five." He pushed down his emotion. " He…he thinks his mother is away visiting family," he scoffed, almost grumbling.

"Well congratulations on finally hitting your mark there, Arthur." He raised his eyebrows at Arthur.

"Nathan is seventeen."

"Yes, it has been about that long hasn't it," he nodded his head slowly.

"He can get along without his mother, but the boy – Peter... he needs her – he's too young, he's too sensitive for this. He's not built for it, I can already see it."

"And what do I get out of the bargain?"

"Nothing. You get nothing." He was cold.

"Well, for me I guess it's a lose, lose situation."

"_Please_, Adam, " he retorted. Arthur Petrelli was actually begging. It came out as a command, but it was a beg. It was now obvious Arthur was holding in his emotions.

"Well, well, well. The great Arthur Petrelli is vulnerable." Adam walked toward Arthur and stopped inches from his ear. "After everything she's done to you, _abused_ your trust. The _**deception**_**s. **_Flaunting _her power in front of you – over you. This is what you want?"

"Nothing I haven't done right back to her."

"And the world, it seems." He paused. "Maybe the word sadistic is being used in the wrong context here, **Arthur**."

"I'm asking you...if you have any humanity left inside of that old, bitter, hard shell of yours Adam, you'll do this. For my children. For my family. After all you've already done. The damage you've caused."

"Yes, those 'super' children of yours,' his tone was biting and wry.

"There is no proof of that!" Arthur snapped back.

"Proof!? Proof!? Arthur, I'm staring it in the face," he laughed. "I myself am _new_ to modern science, but I think I can make an educated guess here," his tone was not just sarcastic but holier-than-thou. "You and Angela need to stop being in denial. _Stop_ self-loathing yourselves for what you can do and_ then_ you'll really have power — that is what power is! _Control_." He paused and looked Arthur over.

Arthur looked devastated.

"You still love her?" Adam seemed more shocked.

Arthur gritted his teeth and spoke instantly. "Yes."

"Now, that's the _pity._" He smirked and his words were cold and hardened. "From hundreds of years of experience, I say this--"

Arthur pulled his gun from the holster and stormed Adam, pushing him up against the concrete wall. He held his gun against Adam's throat and chin. His voice was angry and husky, "Maybe I just do what we all should have done back in '77. I blow your head off! Don't think the idea hasn't crossed our minds. Maybe I don't care how 'valuable' you are. So what? You regenerate, you don't regenerate. I really could care less. We all thought, back then, blowing your head off was cruel and unusual punishment for your crime. Funny enough _more_ if you did live, than if you didn't.– we didn't even wanna try. Maybe we're all foolish, maybe we're all still duped by you. I guess history does a lot, doesn't it Adam? You know all about _history_, don't you?" He dug the gun deeper into Adam's chin and Adam grimaced. "But, hell – you know me. I don't care very much for that–for history, or _rules_, or listening to others. If anything-- if this doesn't work -- it sure as hell will _burn,_ won't it? I've already died once, its nothing I fear anymore – you've died a million times over, what's one more time for old times sake."

Adam looked a little uneasy, but he tried to mask it as much as he could. "Think of your children, Arthur."

Arthur laughed, "Trying to work your magic again? That line of questioning doesn't work with me – it worked with Angela, but ha... she's not here is she? Although, I doubt if she was... you'd still be able to _dupe_ her with that line anymore. We've grown from that, Adam. We all have. Your games don't work anymore. Experience has taught us that. And as you_ know_ I'm a_ vengeful_ man and I don't mind killing you for spite. I've already mourned my wife, I will not mourn for you. You're the one who brought this into my house, this plague – "

Arthur broke away from Adam and left him where he was. Arthur knew he had gone too far and there was no way he would get anywhere towards his goal this way. He had to stop. Adam was controlling him, again. Arthur ran his hand over his mouth for a moment before speaking. "I was going to come in here and talk to you, man-to-man," he said as if he already knew his mistake. Arthur put his gun away.

"Well, that was never really your style now was it, Arthur?" Adam sat down on his cot and looked up at Arthur who stood across the room from him.

"No, not really, " Arthur smirked at Adam, in an almost evil way, as he made sure his gun was secure in its setting. "We were friends once."

"Yes."

"Were we really, were we really friends, Adam? Or were you just using us for your little games?"

"We were friends, Arthur." He said sincerely, but that was hard to tell with Adam.

"What do you want?" Arthur put his hand in his pockets. "Freedom?" Arthur nodded his head and looked over at the man.

"I've learned my lesson." He sounded sincere.

"Have you now?" He wasn't quite sure if he believed him. He paused for a moment and circled the room. "What if I told you, I could get you out of here." He stopped and looked at Adam. "Don't worry they never wired these rooms for sound." He gestured with his head. "We keep saying we will, but no one ever seems to get around to it," he rambled.

"I'm listening then."

"If anyone can get you out of here, it would be me."

Adam said nothing, he eyed him. "And I'm to believe that?"

"My family..." Arthur got a little emotional. "It's all I have, it's my life. I fight this fight for them. I save the world for them, so they can be safe, so they don't have to have the same burdens and pain I have. To leave a better world for them. You can believe me Adam, when I say, I'd do this for you – for my family. You have my word. And my word is my bond." He paused and the two men stared each other down. "The choice is yours. Trust me? Or don't trust me," He said gruffly. " It's up to you."

Arthur stood on the other side of the jail cell door as Adam placed his blood bags, five of them, into a small compartment – it was enough to save Angela and then some. Adam closed the compartment door from inside his cell and as soon as it was secure Arthur opened it from his side. Arthur removed the blood bags and handed them to a man in a white lab coat. The man in the lab coat nodded his head to Arthur and Arthur did the same, before the man walked off and out of sight.

Adam spoke through a set of breathing holes in the plastic door of his cell. "So..." He leaned in as if they were about to share a secret. " When does it look like I'm getting out of here? "Adam said with an evil tone.

"Oh, you're not." Arthur said flatly.

Adam seethed and his eyes widened.

Arthur smirked and leaned in. "It _burns_ doesn't it?" he raised his eyebrows. "How does it feel to be duped, Monroe? "He paused. "Lacks a sense of _control_... don't you think?" he said sarcastically.

"What about your word, Petrelli." he gritted his teeth. "Your bond?"

"A Petrelli always keeps a promise," he raised his eyes with an evil half grin. " Just not to you, Adam." Arthur leaned back and adjusted his suit. " Maybe I'm _sadistic_ that way." He smirked and adjusted the button on his jacket sleeve. He then walked away from Adam's cell and down the hallway.

"Petrelli!" Adam screamed. "You can't do this to me! Petrelli!! You owe me! For so much! So much!"

Arthur was just about to the end of the hallway when Adam yelled one last time, "Petrellllllllllllliiiiiiiiii!"

And Arthur closed the door with a loud and dooming sound that echoed through the prison. There was no way the Company would ever get blood again from Adam Monroe - it was now a certainty.

What Arthur Petrelli could never have known was that by saving his wife, he had put another nail in the coffin of his granddaughter Claire's fate, by unwillingly lighting a fire under the Company's new goal -- finding another regenerator – a new messiah of sorts. The rumblings would soon become a loud chatter, with none other than Arthur Petrelli leading the charge.

**Next Chapter:** Angela first dreams of Claire and plans are made.

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Let me take this time to remind you to feedback. Construstive, good or bad -- you have to remember that if I don't get reviews how am I to know if my work is any good, or how to improve if it is not. One word even just to lets me know people are out there. If this story has given you any joy -- please understand it takes a lot of my hard work and time. If you don't respond to it I can only assume it is not worth finishing. I thank you for reading and for everyone who has sent me such construtive and great reviews -- it really helps to know what people are getting and what they are not. Thank you.


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter 12**

Angela, Arthur, Linderman (Talk of Claire & Nathan)

**Warnings**: a few_ Danielle Steel_ / Heroes moments. :)

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**The Petrellis**

1985

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Arthur Petrelli always remarked how oftentimes his wife had the oddest times to reveal her dreams to him. Most of the time her dreams would wake them both in the middle of the night and he would soothe her and she would tell him her tales. No matter what state their marriage was in, he would always be there when she woke up. But other times Angela Petrelli seemed to relate her dreams to her husband as if she had almost forgotten to tell him to pick up a carton of milk on the way home. It was just old hat for her, perhaps it was pent up anger, perhaps Angela just took it all for granted sometimes.

Most of the time it was because when Angela didn't wake in the middle of the night, but in the morning, she would be up hours before her husband and with time to burn. Time to think and time to be scared and cautious - time to hatch out plans.

On this particular morning Angela sat at her vanity, looking in the mirror and setting her earrings to her ears, while her husband walked out of the bathroom fixing his tie around his neck.

"I dreamt last night we had a granddaughter." Angela made sure the backing of her earring was in place.

Arthur looked at her in the mirror. "When?"

"Four years...I'm not sure." She set a bracelet on her wrist.

"Nathan?"

"He's too young," her voice drifted off.

"He'll be not that much older than you."

Angela turned from the mirror to face her husband. "He's too young," she demanded.

"Don't project you own fears and regrets on him. If it happens – he'll be a man and do the right thing."

"She has an ability, " she said crossly.

"The girl?"

"The mother."

"Angela..." he scolded.

"You know what that means..."

"Angela," he pressed, as he walked toward her.

"I will not let another member of this family suffer for our sins, Arthur." Her voice was clear and forceful.

"And keeping him from marrying one of us, you think that's the way? There are no guarantees --we have seen children with one parent--"

"It's still not a certainty. There's a chance it could all stop--"

"He'll step up and do the right thing if this comes to pass." Arthur was done with this conversation; he'd had enough.

"Nathan has a destiny."

"Whose to say this isn't part of his destiny, Angela?"

"I say it isn't!"

"Sometimes I don't know who you are anymore..."

"You made me who I am, Arthur – don't act surprised."

He shook his head as if he was editing his reply. "Well, just because I created it, doesn't mean I have to like it." They both stared each other down for a moment.

"I have to go to work." Arthur grabbed his jacket off the bed and was gone.

"Something's just not right?" Angela muttered to herself. "Something's just not right about this whole thing." Angela just couldn't put her finger on it yet, but she knew there was more to this story.

* * *

**P****rimatech - Odessa, Texas**

_A Few Months Later_

* * *

"He's dead, " Linderman snapped as he threw a bloody towel against the lab table. "Damn it!" He hit the table and it shook.

"Of course he's dead, use Adam's blood," Angela reprimanded him with all her regal stature.

"I did. It's not working." He slammed his fist against the table.

"How can it not work? It worked on him the last time and it was nothing compared to this--"

"His body is rejecting it. See, if we had gotten Victoria to _stay_, we would have known this beforehand..." He wasn't happy. "We would know so much more than we do..." He looked away for a moment.

"What are you saying?"

"If we could find another regenerator we could do research, we could figure this thing out – but I can only assume the body absorbs it and then that's it. No more free chances."

"So, you're saying..."

He looked deep in her eyes. " We're **all** mortal now." And Linderman left the room to inform Suzanne that her husband was dead. She left the group shortly afterward

* * *

**A Week Later**

* * *

It was such a nasty dream; it was hard to recall without it being shards, images and bright flashes. Angela had been talking to Nathan when it started, when she got the first glimpses of it, but of course Nathan had no idea, no one ever did. Angela didn't flinch or move a muscle unlike herself. It was bloody, but Angela had seen bloody, what made it so disturbing was that at the center of the scene was her granddaughter, Nathan's daughter, the blonde cheerleader.

"I don't agree with your decision, but if you want to follow your father's footsteps into the military, I can't stop you."

Nathan was telling his parents that he had just been excepted to Annapolis. He would be a "fly boy", the irony was not lost on Angela.

And while Nathan was congratulated by his father with a nice cigar and a stiff glass of scotch in the study, Angela sat at the breakfast table a little worried and yet not so anxious. She soon felt her small little man, Peter, running his head under her arm and resting his head on her waist– he was six. She pushed a few strands of hair away from his face and kissed him on the forehead.

"He'll be fine, my love..." she said looking into his eyes and then off toward Nathan. "I can guarantee that." Just because she knew the future didn't mean Angela still didn't worry. The future can change, but not if she had anything to do about it.

* * *

The Petrelli Home

1989

* * *

Angela awoke with a name this time. A name on her lips and that name was Claire.

The room was bright and Angela was surprised to see she had slept through eleven o'clock -- she was alone in the house.

* * *

**Arthur Petrelli's Law Firm**

Manhattan

* * *

Angela charged her way into Arthur's law firm as she did most places, like she owned it. She wore black gloves and a white wrap with fake black fur along the edges, a thin black purse under her right arm and her hair pulled up in a French twist.

They tried to stop her as she blew past the interns and Arthur's secretary, bursting her way into Arthur's office. What she found was Arthur standing next to his desk, leaning in very close to one Ms. Paula Gramble.

"Excuse me," Angela said with very little emotion. "I've obviously interrupting something." It was hard for Angela not to be jealous of any time another woman spent in her husband's presence, when she herself had so little - but when it was a member of the group it seemed to boil her temperature to _other_ areas of envy.

"I was just leaving..." Paula took her purse and walked to the door. "Angela..." she said as she passed her.

"Paula..." Angela said curtly as Paula exited and closed the door behind her. "And here I thought you had a thing for blondes."

"Now, _that_ was uncalled for," Arthur said smartly.

Angela knew that Arthur had never cheated on her, but she knew he had tried and Arthur knew it too.

"It's a little hard to run around on a pre-cog, " he once joked to Daniel.

But Angela knew that behind that school-boy bravado lived something else and perhaps it was the man she first fell in love with. See, Angela had seen the one time Arthur had tried, not in person, but about two hours before, across town. And he did have a taste for blondes, just like his son Nathan would. Both Petrelli men had a penchant for blondes; they would just marry brunettes. But what all the Petrelli men had in common, Arthur, Nathan and Peter, was that they all fell for strong women - just like their mothers.

It was just after Kaito and perhaps it was Arthur's revenge on her. He had gotten as far as Suzanne's bedroom. He had ordered her to take her clothes off, because he liked saying it, he had touched her, kissed her, had her lying on the bed, but then he stopped, said he was sorry and left her apartment.

Still, the couple were at odds with each other these last years; Angela with another one of her family missions, leaving Arthur confounded and left in the dust. When Angela dreamed there was no way Arthur could not be five steps behind her. She just knew more than he could ever know - Angela just dreamed bigger.

Angela held onto the doorknob and adjusted her weight onto her other foot, just a small shade of a fidget left from her childhood - Arthur knew it well.

Angela took a few steps forward into the room and talked softly. "I came by because I thought you would like to know what your granddaughter's ability is," she said as if proving herself right and him wrong. "I guess I was mistaken, you _obvious_ have more important things to occupy your time." And she turned for the door.

"Don't you walk away." Arthur grabbed her arm, hard, before she could get the door all the way open. He closed the door shut with his other hand and snarled in her face, "Don't you use this family's future to manipulate me, Angela. I have just as much_ stake_ in this family as you do."

"Then act like it! At least pretend that you care about what happens to this family after we're gone."

"Oh, come on now? You don't think everything I did, everything I've _ever_ done hasn't been for you, hasn't been for those two boys and this family. I did it for you," he demanded. "I was trying to give you the world."

Angela took in heavy breaths as if holding in her anger. "Well, I don't want it anymore. You can **have** it!" And she tore away from his grip and opened the door.

Arthur took her arm and shut the door in her face again. "What can she do?" he asked like a good company man.

Angela didn't flinch or take her eyes off the door. "Let me out!"

"You came to tell me what she can do." Arthur's voice was cold and slow.

"You want to know so bad?" She turned to him. "She's a healer, Arthur," Angela cried out, losing her strength for a moment, but not fully. "She's a healer." It was like all their sins were slapping them in the face.

Angela regained her full composure.

"Like Linderman?" he was confused as to why she was reacting in such a way.

"Like Adam." The word Adam seemed to cut the air like a razor blade.

Arthur was struck and he let go of Angela's arm.

"_Happy now."_ Her eyes glittered with the tears she held in and she wouldn't allow him to see. And Angela stormed out of Arthur Petrelli's office past a large sign with the godsend symbol on it.

* * *

**Arthur & Angela Petrelli**

The Petrelli home

_Later that night._

* * *

Arthur sat in his study, drinking a scotch, the fire was burning, putting him in shadows in the dimly lit room. He stood up and crossed to the fireplace where a few family photographs were set on the mantel. His eyes fixated on a picture of himself with Nathan and Peter. He lifted the picture off the mantel to get a better look and his eyes filled with emotion.

Angela walked in unnoticed and closed the two doors behind her. Arthur didn't know she was in the room until he heard the door shut. He pulled in his emotion quickly like the alpha dog he was.

"Peter asleep?" Arthur set the picture back on the mantel and took a drink of his scotch. He walked toward Angela.

"Yes." She moved her head and slid her shoulder length hair behind her ear. This caused the other side of her hair to fall over her face, but before she could push it back Arthur set the strand behind her other ear.

They caught eyes.

"Who does she look like?" he asked, never taking an eye off her face.

"She looks like her mother." Angela looked away.

Arthur ran his hand over the side of Angela's face.

"What happened to us, Angie?" He hadn't called her that in a long time.

"I don't have time to fight right now."

"I don't want to fight." He sincerely meant it.

Angela walked away from Arthur toward his desk. "I don't know how long we have before she's born."

"What have you seen?" he said as if asking for the daily news report. He finished his drink and set the glass down on his desk.

Angela turned to face Arthur. "Bob ...he...was taking her blood. The rest were all images – nothing more concrete, it might be a representation of the Company, it may not even be Bob—but then again..."

"Bob? He wouldn't—"

"**D**esperation times make people do **d**esperate things, Arthur. We both know that."

"I know you think I don't have as many regrets as you do --we both do Angela. This shouldn't be driving a wedge further and further between us – talk to me, don't make demands _at_ me."

"You weren't there for me before... why should I expect any different now."

"I'm sorry I hurt you, Angela."

"'If sorry fixed the world' – isn't that what you use to say." She was cold and condescending.

"I use to say a lot of things." His voice had shame in it.

"Did you ever really love me?" It was a serious question filled with a quiet rage.

"Would you believe me anymore if I said, yes?"

"I'm not sure." She really didn't know.

"I do..." He said it as if he was surprised, but he meant it.

"Love is overrated," she gestured quickly with her head.

"I don't think you believe that," he said pointedly.

"You taught me that by the way," she snarled at him.

"Life taught you that," he was firm.

"Same difference," her voice was soft and cold. Angela roamed around the room.

"I'm sorry I brought this darkness into this house, but you're not blameless in this matter -- don't go around pretending that you're all white lilies and angel wings."

"I have no problem admitting to that," she said flatly. "We both brought this madness into this house. And there is nothing wrong with me wanting our children and our children's children not to suffer the same fate. We've sold our souls for it, we shouldn't be bringing them down with us."

"'At least you tried'," he echoed her words in the same spot she had stood when she told him she was pregnant with Peter.

"I want to give her everything I never had. Choice."

"Choice?"

"If she grows up without us she'll have the opportunity to grow up and develop into a woman who can make her own choices and not have them thrust upon her. Without this albatross around her neck." Angela paused for a moment." Where she's not a Petrelli."

Arthur started to have a change of heart or perhaps he was still in denial. "She can make choices here, here with her family - we can protect her."

"From being a science experiment? Until she becomes an adult and she can't defend herself, she'll always be hunted, if not by the Company –"

"We built this company –** I** built this company. I don't believe you. I don't believe they'd do that to this family. To one of our own."

"You mean like we turned on Adam."

"It's not the same thing." He was shocked by the comment.

"The group can be very persuasive can't it, Arthur? Keeping your head above water. Because, we're already drowning. Drowning in our own choices." She walked closer to him " Thirsty for another shot at immortality, " she almost mocked in his direction.

"They wouldn't do that to one of our own."

"We've both seen it happen."

"But, that was for the greater good."

"And where does it end? Harry himself, said if we had another healer we could figure out a way to kill Adam for sure."

"He's become a bitter, bitter man."

"Who hasn't?" She took Arthur's empty glass and poured him another scotch.

After she set the glass down on his desk, he grabbed her wrist. Angela stiffened, yet showed no signs of it on her face.

"You think they want Adam dead that badly they'd experiment on a little girl. That they all want to find another way to cheat death so much they would do this to us – to _this_ family."

She leaned in closer. "I know what we created."

Arthur let go of her wrist. His soul seemed to shrink as Arthur remembered how he had caused this; he had started the crusade to find another regenerator. It was all too ironic for words. There was a moment of silence between them. "How long?" His voice was low and caught in his thoughts.

"It could be any day now. Weeks. Months. It's hard to tell."

Arthur took a deep breath and nodded his head – he looked defeated.

Angela continued ."And whenever he comes home with this news, we both will have our roles to play."

"Think about your future, Nathan." Arthur seemed to grow taller.

"Poison his mind to the mother, you know the best way to do that, don't you?" She knew his hold over their son.

"She's trash. She's low level, trailer park, they're too young..."

"Yes." Angela smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. "He won't know it but he'll thank us later. We're protecting his child, Arthur, our granddaughter."

"I know." He nodded his head. He was as resolute about it as she was.

"If you ever really loved me, you'll do this for me." Her voice was hurt with a broken heart.

Angela went for the door as Arthur took a drink from his glass.

Angela's emotions started to brim to the surface and she paused at the door frame. "There is one last thing." She couldn't look at him. "What you asked me before?"

Arthur turned toward her.

Angela looked at her husband; they both looked broken. What they were about to do to their son may have been for the better, but it was something they knew, if ever discovered, would be unforgivable. "She has your eyes." Angela left Arthur's office and the door slammed unintentionally.

And for the first time Arthur felt what his wife had been feeling for years -- alone. Yet, somehow through all of it, in this moment, these plans that Arthur and Angela were putting together brought them closer together than they had been in years. They weren't just fighting together side by side to save the world, or protect their secrets; they were now on the same side: the family. Arthur finally saw everything from Angela's side, as he too feared the same fears for his families future, what it held, and what he had done to bring them there. Arthur Petrelli had brought a plague on to his own house, and now it was his job to save it.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**: Claire & Meredith

* * *

Trailers for upcoming chapters can be found on youtube under the screename: **TestOnly46.** If you do not want to know plot points of upcoming chapters be sure NOT to watch,"The life of Angela Petrelli" part one and two -- for it was what inspired this fic.

* * *

_Notes_: I also remind you how important feedback is and I look forward to your thoughts, long / short or good/ bad.


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Meredith

**Chapter Thirteen**

Angela, Arthur, Nathan/Meredith, & Peter (10ys) (Claire in utero)

_Six Months Later_

**1989**

A month before Nathan was scheduled to leave for his first after graduation military posting Arthur Petrelli had his first "heart attack". Arthur Petrelli was a man who knew mortality intimately, but it was only after his most recent, all too human bout with death that he felt perhaps his luck was beginning to run out. His depression returned which, as Angela told her son Nathan, is what happened with heart patients and to think nothing more of it. It was hard to get Arthur out at night and Angela worried for him, but she told no one of her fears. The information was kept from their young son Peter and no one was the wiser. Angela was forty-four-years-old and she was still a stranger to the truth.

Nathan, on the other hand, saw the weight that his father carried showed more upon the "old man's" shoulders. Nathan himself had taken on adult responsibilities long before the appropriate age, both by family circumstances and his own actions. From being the father to Peter that Nathan's own father had been to him, to taking on the family responsibilities, the burden, as the golden son – the heir apparent, it was nothing Nathan asked for or was asked of him. Nathan Petrelli took it freely, for he had been raised to be just that kind of a man – he felt it was his birthright. All Nathan yreaned to do was lift some of the load off his father's shoulders– both his parents. The burden Nathan felt responsible for by nothing more than his own birth. Nathan Petrelli's childhood had been a short one.

"Sometimes you have to make hard choices for the greater good, " Arthur Petrelli almost demanded to his son as they both stood outside on the back patio, looking up at the stars.

"Pop, I know..." Nathan had been caught by his father sneaking a cigar after dinner. His father didn't care, Arthur knew what habits one picks up from military life. But really it was an occasional habit on Nathan's part, and at the moment, was helping him relax away from what he only referred to as his "mother's nagging."

"Everything I do, everything I've done, I did to take care of this family, you know that, Nathan."

"Yeah, Pop, I know..." He figured his father had been talking about Linderman.

It was no secret in the Petrelli home what Arthur Petrelli did for Daniel Linderman, a known mobster and Arthur's number one client. Peter and Nathan knew the details of their father's business, at least they thought they did – they of course didn't know the whole story – the story Arthur Petrelli was really alluding too.

"I know, Pop. I know..." Nathan saw the pain in his father's eyes and it was something Nathan would never forget.

Arthur took the cigar out of Nathan's hand and took a puff.

"Pop!" Nathan scolded him. After all the man had just had a heart attack, as far as Nathan knew..

Arthur Petrelli took another puff and smiled at his son. "Don't tell your mother." He smirked and raised his eyebrows.

One of the few family secrets Arthur Petrelli did share with his son Nathan, one that no one else knew about, especially not ten-year-old Peter, was that when Nathan was born his family's money was beginning to be in name and prestige only. Sure, they had some money, more than most, but most of it was caught up in investments, assets and debt passed down to Arthur from the previous generation; Arthur Petrelli actually had to work for a living. He worked for a living to keep his family in the manner to which they were accustomed to. And soon Arthur Petrelli had his fortune back and no one was the wiser. Thanks to Daniel Linderman, which in turn was thanks to the Company, the Petrellis didn't need to worry for funds ever again. Peter and Nathan always knew their livelihood as children – room, board, education and food - was funded by blood money; they just didn't know how literal it actually was. As far as the Petrelli boys were both concerned, Arthur Petrelli was a very successful Manhattan lawyer with one prominent shady dealing - and that was the way Arthur Petrelli liked it.

Once a month a man would arrive, usually in the mid-morning, at the Petrelli home. He would have a check for Angela to sign for - postmark - Las Vegas. Angela would then sit at her desk, among her silver desk set and her brown leather checkbook embossed with the words Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Petrelli and write the check's amount into the household accounts. She would do all of this with a stern, silent demeanor and a very nice pen. By noon, on the dot, Angela would have her driver, David, take her to the family's bank where Angela would deposit the check to the eager smiles of the bank manager. These checks made the transactions have a sense of purpose - a way for a large amount of money to mysteriously appearing in one's checking account without appearing suspicious. At around five o'clock that evening Arthur Petrelli would take a break from his day's work and pull out his own checkbook, the same color as Angela's and write a check. He would then casually hand it off to his secretary, who would deposit the money in an account labeled: "college fund." In the next couple of days Arthur Petrelli would have that money wired to an offshore account that had one purpose and one purpose only: Claire's future. It was all just another necessary evil in the Petrellis life.

Nathan didn't want to leave his father so soon after his heart attack, but Nathan knew his own military service made his father proud. And although he didn't want to leave town, Nathan knew how much it meant to his father if he honored his commitment and not use his father as an excuse; his mother agreed. It pleased Nathan even more when the news brought a smile to his father's face.

Peter, although only nine, was too young to truly understand what was happening around him. As far as Peter was concerned he always saw his father as a very serious, sour man, so to Peter there was nothing out of the ordinary about his father's behavior. But, perhaps Peter just didn't know where to look yet. Peter would occasionally catch his mother and father holding hands when they didn't think anyone else was looking. And his mother crying alone when she didn't think anyone was around. His mother tears was something Peter could understand and it made a deep impression on him.

When Nathan was away at Annapolis, it was hard on his little brother, but they were always in contact by phone or postcard – not to mention holiday visits. But, with Nathan's first official posting, Peter felt alone without his older brother only a phone call away. Nathan had had other military postings during his summers off from school, but this felt different to little Peter. It was the idea that Nathan was one step closer to going off to war, a war he didn't understand and this weighed heavy on Peter's heart. It would on anyone, but Peter just felt it stronger and more intense, picking up on the thoughts and discomfort of those around him, like he almost understood what they were feeling. He knew something was wrong, that his mother seemed troubled all the time. That she only started smiling when he entered a room, but he could have no idea the type of pain she was going through. All Peter knew was that both his parents had many worries on their mind; just like all adults.

The truth going on in the Petrelli household was that Arthur and Angela Petrelli were becoming more and more disillusioned by the world, and even more so by the Company they now felt ensconced in like quicksand. They knew the Company needed to be in place and that even removing one floorboard would bring the whole ship down. And when that piñata burst, it would not be raining candy. They had resigned themselves, long ago, that for the sake of the world, for the sake of their children, they would have to mortgage their souls. But it was at this time in their lives that Arthur and Angela fully understood that there was no turning back, only looking forward; something Angela was well acquainted with.

The new partnership Angela and Arthur had formed with Peter's birth was snowballing each day from a secret to a conspiracy, as they fought for and against the very thing they were. Loved and hated the very thing they perpetrated. Trying to do the right thing for everyone concerned. Trying to stay afloat in a world that they themselves had created and knew too well could literally suffocate them both. It took no prisoners. It was absolute. And if it meant doing the things they had to do to stop that cycle with them, it was worth it. Evil must be stopped, they used to say, when anyone questioned the practice of the Company. Angela and Arthur now knew that all_ too_ well.

Every day was a waiting game and every moment was a question mark, as Angela and Arthur waited for Claire's arrival. The waiting was always the hardest part.

**The Petrelli Home**

Four Months Later

The first thing Angela remembered was Nathan's huge smile when he opened the door. He came home a few hours earlier than was planned and he surprised everyone when he walked into the house after four months flying jets in Texas.

Angela was caught off-guard and gasped happily.

"Nathan!" Peter yelled, leaping down the stairs into his older brother's arms, as Nathan knelt down and hugged him.

"Oh, I missed you, kid." Nathan held on for dear life, just like his mother had to him when Nathan had left himself. "What are you going to do when I go off to war, Ma?" He joked to her at the time, but she didn't find it funny.

Angela walked to her son and he kissed her on the cheek.

"Ma." Nathan smiled at her.

"You look good, " she laid her hand on his chin for a moment. "Well fed. Good, you look good."

"Three squares a day..." His eyes darted off and he caught sight of his father. "Pop!" His father looked well and that gave Nathan great joy.

"Son." Arthur smiled and put out his hand for Nathan to shake.

The men shook hands as Nathan's Annapolis ring gleamed in the sunlight.

"Sir." Nathan would later recall that it was the first time he really felt like a man in his father's presence.

Nathan grinned that Petrelli grin like a mirror in his father's direction, while Peter stood happily at his brother's feet. Angela knew that grin well and it gave her a melancholy feeling.

Nathan finally gazed up and noticed a makeshift sign hanging in front of him with the words, "Welcome Home, Nathan," in different color crayons, and Nathan knew it was Peter's hand.

Nathan Petrelli took a deep breath; it was good to be home. And it was a good day because Nathan was with what his mother would say was the most important thing in the world, "family."

**Four Months Later**

The Petrelli Home

Angela helped Peter with his homework at one end of the living room, while Arthur and Nathan discussed Nathan's future at the other. Nathan would finish his law degree, take his tour of duty overseas, then after a few years come home and intern at his father's firm. His father had made arrangements, how Nathan didn't know.

It was all laid out for Nathan on a silver platter and it made him happy for the future, because he was one step closer to being a man like his father.

Angela and Peter set their foreheads together in a loving gesture and Angela smiled. Now finished with his homework Peter ran off and Angela stood. She looked over at Nathan and her husband and all seemed well - happy. Angela tried to pretend that this wasn't always the time when everything fell apart. She tried to forget the words Arthur used to say to her, "looks can be deceiving."

There was suddenly a knock at the door. Angela's head turned toward the foyer and the sound. . She looked at Arthur and Nathan to see if they were expecting anyone, but they looked at her just as dumbfounded as she was.

Angela made her way into the foyer just in time to see Peter standing in front of a half open door.

"Peter dear, who is it?" Angela entered the foyer and walked to the entrance way. She took hold of the door above Peter's head and turned it from a small opening to a larger one.

It was then that the person behind the door was revealed to Angela Petrelli. The face was unmistakable and Angela knew just who the girl was. Blonde hair, rosy cheeks, large smile, small stature - it was Claire's mother. Angela's stomach sank because the time had come. She had dreaded it, but it was done – the time had arrived. Plans made, must be hatched.

Nineteen-year-old Meredith Gordon put her swollen fingers over her almost six month pregnant stomach. This caused Angela to eye her action with great detail.

Meredith looked down at Peter and smiled, "Well, you must be Peter – your brother has told me so much about you, it's like I already know you, " she purred in her southern tones.

"Peter, go in the back yard and play..." Angela instructed Peter coldly and he obeyed.

There she was, standing in Angela's doorway, the mother of Nathan's first child, with her golden curls, young as a new day sky, big bright eyes, bags packed and at her feet. Petrelli boys sure had a type.

"I'm looking for Nathan." Meredith rubbed her stomach as her eyes danced.

But, Angela already knew that.

Angela locked the back door behind Peter and bolted the deadlock. She didn't want her son to know anything about what was to transpire - no one could know. It would have to stay between the four of them: Angela, Arthur, Nathan and Meredith. It was the only way to keep Claire safe. In Angela's life that's what secrets were for, to keep people safe.

Angela entered the living room and she could see Nathan and his father talking passionately through parts of the study's glass door, the rest was obscured with soft white curtains.

Angela smiled at Meredith, who was sitting on the couch, with her own polite fake smile.

Meredith appeared to be out of place as she sat in the Petrelli living room, drinking a glass of milk, looking around at the finery she saw around Angela's home. She had seen nothing like it in Texas.

Angela looked the girl over and had her pegged. Angela had her pegged from the moment she opened the door, and it had nothing to do with pre-cognitive dreaming. Angela Petrelli knew people, she knew what they wanted based on how they behaved, their body language, what they said and how they looked; that was from experience. And when Charles had first brough the concept to her attention he never could have dreamed this would be the way she would end up using it - to manipluate.

It was starting to get awkward between the two women. "Excuse me," Angela shined that same polite smile again and entered Arthur's study.

Arthur's voice ripped through the living room."Do you really want to be saddled down with a wife and a kid, Nathan? Now."

"No, of course not!" Nathan said with the brashness of a snotty kid with no sense of the world.

Angela closed the door behind her as Meredith tried to pretend she hadn't heard what Nathan had said and Nathan tried to forget he knew Meredith had heard him.

"I'm just trying to do the right thing, here!" Nathan yelled to his father. "I'm just tryin' to do what you would do, Pop."

"Then listen to me, kid..." he bellowed with full force, putting out both his hands toward his son.

"Nathan," Angela tried to interrupt, but before she could get another word in edgewise Nathan brushed her off.

"Ma! Do you mind." He wouldn't take her gaze. " I don't want to hear from you right now – let me just talk this over with Pop!" He turned away from her.

Angela wasn't sure if Nathan felt it unbecoming for a man to talk to his mother about such things or if he was generally embarrassed for what had happened. Knocking up one's girlfriend isn't something one talks to one's mother about.

Arthur nodded his head for Angela to go.

Angela took a breath and rolled her head skyward; she wasn't happy. Still, Angela left the study and shut the door behind her. And there was Meredith again, leaving the two women in another awkward moment.

Meredith looked around. "Nathan wasn't kiddin' when he said two different worlds – he use to joke we were from two different worlds. I ain't never seen such things in my life. You have a lovely home." She drank her milk. "Wow, " she exclaimed looking around and nodding her head and smiling. "I like that one." She pointed to a chair. "It's real nice."

"It's a Stickley," Angela said pointedly, rubbing two of her fingers together and looking at her nails for a moment.

"Oh..." Meredith mouthed not knowing what that was. She would later learn by accident it was a famous furniture designer and Meredith would remember this moment, feeling proud that she finally knew what the word Stickly meant. Claire remembered her mother telling her that story, Meredith just failed to mention any names.

Meredith put her hand to her stomach.

"How far along are you?" Angela ran her hands over the back of a chair directly in front of the study door and opposite Meredith.

"Six months, just about seven..."

"I was about your age when I had Nathan," she sat down in the chair. "When did you know?"

"Oh, I don't...I wasn't sure at first – three-four months?" She nodded her head shy and uneasy.

"Really? Because you're a small girl, smaller than me I think, not by that much, but still pregnancy holds more on a smaller woman especially in a girl as young as you. Your first pregnancy, I'm assuming? Which means you would have had to have started to show a little before that – whichsaysto me you waited to come here and tell Nathan. " She paused and stared the girl down. "I think you waited a few more months so you could... **make** an _impression_." She eyed Meredith's stomach.

The girl swallowed hard. "Nathan will do the right thing," she said quickly.

"Yes, he will." She said in a soft and pointed voice. " Nathan always wants to do the right thing. But what _he_ thinks is right and what his father and I think is right are two different things entirely." Angela slid a piece of hair behind her ear and locked eyes with the girl with all her power. "The right thing can be _very_ **subjective**." Angela, without moving a muscle, had shifted the power play to her corner. "How much do you want?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How much do you want?" Angela eyed the girl for a moment, waiting for her to speak. She held her hands in front of her, setting her fingers together.

"Fifty thousand." Meredith didn't have to think hard on that one. "And some money for expenses and stuff, for the kid."

"Twenty thousand. We pay for your room and board, **in Texas **. You'll get a very_ generous_ allowance once a month. All correspondences are done through _me_ --You tell no one who the child's father is. No one. You do not see Nathan, he does not see you. And as long as you keep that child alive and healthy, your allowance will grow every year until the child finishes college, which we will also pay for." Angela spoke with clarity, grace and power.

There was a long pause while the two women stared each other down.

Angela slightly shook her head in a condescending way as she talked, "It's the best you could ever hope for, dear. " She paused. "You've hit the jackpot. I'd take the deal." She rose and nodded her head. "It won't be on the table for very long."

Meredith looked at Angela and waited a moment, looking as if she wasn't sure what to do. Finally, Meredith sealed her fate and nodded her head yes.

"I thought you might say that..." Angela grinned and her eyes widened.

That night Nathan told Meredith he wasn't ready to be a father and she didn't tell him about the money. Angela and Arthur told Nathan not to worry, that they would make the arrangements, he never knew they already had.

And sometime later, after the Petrelli's driver took Meredith to the airport, alone, Angela had her first dream in which Peter was dead; it frightened her to her core. At least Claire was safe, but now Angela had to worry about Peter; she just didn't know why yet.

**Next Chapter:** 1991: Angela sees Peter's future firsthand. She meets Claude & The Haitian.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

_(Claude, Angela/Arthur, (Young) The Haitian, Bob and a cameo by (Young) Elle_ & HRG

**The Petrelli Home**

_Manhattan_

1991

Angela aggressively pulled open the two doors to her large bedroom closet on a mission. She eyed the boxes of shoes and racks of designer clothing, scanning the drawers and the shelves, looking for something specific. Her gaze finally found it - a large box on the bottom of the closet, hidden by a few purses and a photo album. Angela reached down and pulled out the large heavy box. Leaving it where it landed, she knelt down on the floor next to the box with a large release of air.

She tore open the box's lid. It was filled with stacks and stacks of old books. Mostly paperbacks, one or two hardcovers. The kind one finds in used bookstores and garage sales - yellowed and with the corners flaked off. Some so old they had those old green edges found on old paperbacks from the 1970s. All the books had one thing in common and that was their subject: dreams.

"There must be something I'm missing," Angela muttered to herself as she tore through the pages of the books, reading and searching like a mad woman.

Arthur heard the racket from the hallway and entered the room. He walked around their bed until he finally caught sight of Angela on the ground in front of the open closet – books everywhere.

"What is going on here?" he exclaimed.

"There's something I'm missing. Some metaphor I don't know, some representation I've forgotten..." Angela was nose deep in a large faded hardcover.

"Angela, you memorized these books years ago, what's gotten into you?"

"He's always dead, Arthur..." Her voice was low and strong with a tinge of emotion. "In all the dreams. **Dead**." Her voice was deep in her throat on the word dead. "At different times, different ways, but he's always dead." She sucked in her tears and threw the book in her hand to the ground, looking around for another book to replace it.

Arthur knelt down next to her, taking her gently by the arms, to take her attention away from the books. "You almost never dream in metaphors anymore, Angela. Not in years, we've learned that." Arthur was actually kind with her. He wasn't demanding or shouting, he was actually sweetly talking to her; he was just telling her the truth.

"No, no. It must be something else." Her voice was filled with the tears from her eyes. She was with Arthur, her emotions could flow more easily than when she was in the presence of others who were not her family; Arthur she trusted.

"What can he do, Angela? Maybe it has something to do with what he can do? What do you see him doing?"

"That's just it." She looked into his brown eyes. "I see him flying -- seeing the future, I see him time traveling and sending things through the air." She swallowed hard. "Every night it's like something new. That's why I was so confused, unsure, at first...but now I think I know." Angela was now facing what she was afraid of. The denial that had sent her to the books in the first place.

"He's an empath?" Arthur asked agog; he knew how rare that was.

Angela nodded her head almost on the verge of tears. "I think so."

**Primatech Research**

Hartsdale, NY

Angela Petrelli sat in Bob's office, impatiently waiting. The office had once belonged to Kaito, but it now belong to one Robert Bishop. Bob had succeeded Kaito in the office, about ten years before, when Kaito had backed off from his duties, deciding to spend more time in Japan with his own business and his new family. Kaito was still a higher ranking founder next to Bob, but Bob was promoted and moved into Kaito's office just the same. It brought Bob Bishop more responsibility, yet not as much as Kaito had when he occupied the same office. Bob reported to Linderman, Arthur and Kaito. Bob ran the day-to-day activities at Primatech, but he did not make large decisions, although he wanted to, and everyone knew it.

Angela checked her watch and grew weary of sitting. Standing, so she could stretch her legs, Angela made her way around the office. She took in the light beige file boxes stacked so neatly on rows of shelves. Each one with a different name, a different founder and their family. She didn't mean to, but Angela's eyes caught sight of her own name, set out in five file boxes that she knew one day would grow to at least seven. She ran her leather-gloved finger along the fronts of them, gliding it along to the end - it wasn't playful, it wasn't whimsical, it was with disgust.

"I keep telling myself I should put it all on disk..." Bob's voice entered the room.

Angela turned to look at him in the doorway.

"Maybe when I have more time I'll start with the smaller volumes." Bob walked into the room. "You know, you can look at them. They are yours."

"No," she said firmly. "I know what's in them. What's the point?" She put her hands in front of her and held onto her fingers.

"I understand you want a tour. I have the perfect person." Bob smiled oddly and took a breath.

Claude took Angela through the hallways of Primatech, as they reached the end of their tour.

"I'm usually out of the Odessa office–" He spoke in his Manchester accent. "So you'll excuse me, if I don't fully know my way around." His eyes scanned the doors as they passed, as if looking for one in particular. "My partner and I– we're here on Company business." They reached a room and Claude looked at a small name plate next to it. "You wanted to see the empath, right?"

Angela nodded her head. Claude opened the door with a loud rattle. He offered his hand forward for Angela to enter first and she did.

Bob had been too busy to take Angela around, which was fine by her, not that Angela needed anyone to show her around Primatech. But the kind of knowledge Angela was looking for wasn't anything she knew about firsthand: the bag and tag. Angela was looking for knowledge that couldn't be found in files or second hand accounts.

"Empaths are an interesting lot." Claude entered the room and closed the door behind him. "Rare. Very rare. I think we've come across three I believe -well, you know don't ya --I don't have to tell you, do I? But, I guess you've never seen one under glass before, have ya?" Claude flipped a switch and the large window in front of them illuminated.

Angela was shocked to see a young boy, about seventeen, sitting alone on a bench. He looked cold and small, gaunt and weak. He reminded her of her son, he reminded her of Peter.

"He's so young..." Angela almost questioned.

"Yeah, well I guess you've kinda stumbled onto the young lads and ladies ward here. Not on purpose, it just sorta – ended up that way, I guess. Who happens to come in, who happens to come out."

Angela walked along the glass to the other side of the room to take a better look. The boy laid down and set his head on the bench, he looked like he needed it.

Claude watched Mrs. Petrelli for a moment and then finished his talk. "We've been trying to see how much he can take. Paradin' him in front of every Tom, Dick and Harriet with an ability. He's absorbed more than any empaths on record."

"What does it do to the body?" she questioned with all seriousness.

"What you'd expect. It's hell. Not to mention, unlike with one ability, the brain is trying to deal with so many at a time it can't focus, it dances around like a magpie – it has to be controlled and worked on-- before even one ability can be used to the same extent as the benefactor it came from. Otherwise, its just a parlor trick, a reflex. Some come easier though, and outshine the others. Still -- 'Jack of all trades, master of none'," he joked. "We exposed this one to so many abilities at once he went into a coma for two months, almost died, his heart couldn't take it. The other one we had, died early on; it was too much for 'um. This one we exposed to someone with cellular regeneration – he's also the only one of those we got here, someone in the basement. Adam, something or other –and still this one's brain is degrading..."

The emotions churning in Angela's stomach, as she listened to Claude, crept slowly up her forearms like a cockroach. But, Angela would not let her emotions get the better of her. She would not show weakness. Not in front of this stranger, not in front of this Company, not now; she would not give her secrets away. This boy lying on that slab was just an example of what Angela Petrelli and her husband had passed down to their child - an amalgam of everything she feared. It was taking all of Angela's strength not to lose her composure and crumble into nothingness, but Angela did what she did best, she fought it. For the first time outside of her own body, Angela saw her youngest son's future laid out in front of her like a road map - a road map she would find a way to stop.

Claude pointed to the boy behind the glass. "Our doctors suspect at some point it will degrade his entire ability... and with out empathy he'll lose the cellular regeneration and just die. It's sad really." He looked at Angela for a response, but she continued to hold it well. "That makes only two out of the three we know about surviving–"

"Can he...?" she asked concerned.

"The proximity you mean? Can he absorb your ability from here? Unlikely. But, who knows. Some of the powers we had to tell 'um he had. I guess if you don't know your left arm is there– how would you know how to use it? Of course someone with your power, who knows? One day he could be fine and then the next day like a switch, " Claude snapped his fingers, " He could be walkin' up telling 'us who's gonna win the next five Super Bowls."

"What if he wasn't exposed to so many abilities while he was here, then what?"

"I suspect he'd be home playing video games and chattin' up some girls at the local football game – never the wiser he had an ability in the first place. " He leaned his back against the glass and folded his arms. "If an empath never meets another person with an ability, was he ever an empath at all?" Claude remarked with a raised eyebrow. "Do you want to see what he can do? We can do a little show. Show you his _wares_?" Again, Claude looked at Angela ready to gauge her thoughts: what impression had been made on her.

"No." Angela swallowed hard, but gave little response. "I've seen enough." She turned for the door and left the room.

Angela exited the room into the hallway and noticed a large window in front of her. She slowly approached it. Through the glass and below her, Angela could see another cell, only bigger and with equipment on its outskirts. As she approached she could see a few men in white lab coats, now seeing the full length of the room. It was then that she noticed a young, blonde, girl, about eight, or seven perhaps, sitting in a chair. The child was strapped down and had a glazed-over look on her face. In the corner of the room stood Bob and a man with horn rimmed glasses.

"That's Bob's daughter?" Angela questioned. "Elle." She thought she recognized the girl.

"Yeah, the boss's kid. Not immune to the confines of this place. I mean if it's an ability worth testing... why not test it – why not use it to one's advantage, right? "

Again, Claude tried to gauge Angela's reaction, but it was hard. She was after all a woman of steel now, no longer the girl who would let people use her secrets against her.

"What can she do?" Angela questioned.

"She's electric. Could power a whole city block, if need be."

"She looks tired." It was a statement that came out like a question.

"Pushing people past their full capacity is the only way to show their full potential'." Claude looked at Angela... "I'm only quoting your own husband." He looked back at the window. "Nothing but the best for daddy's little girl." His tones were growing more and more sarcastic.

Claude and Angela watched as one of the men in the white coats twisted a dial and the girl started to shake and vibrate with electricity.

Angela jumped, but caught herself. Claude saw it.

"I've seen enough." Angela turned and walked away from Claude at a determined pace. "It's inhuman the way children are treated around here," Angela demanded harshly as she put her gloves back on to leave.

"It's inhuman the way _people_ are treated around here," Claude said as an aside, his hands in his pockets, never moving from his spot against the window.

Angela slowly turned toward him with a strong-willed look on her face. "This world is filled with horrible, lecherous people. Murderers, rapists, arsonists, mad men. Under every rock and behind every corner. Dangerous and powerful people. Killers. We keep these people from roaming the world. Destroying it. Someone has to be there to police the unpoliced." She walked closer to him and stopped. "What this Company does... is a service. A service people, if they knew... they would thank us for. I am thankful this Company is here to protect my family. As should you. "

Claude slowly walked toward her as he spoke." And who are you to choose who lives and who dies? Who's good and who's bad?" He was face-to-face with her now. " Who am I...you... to persecute our own people, our own kind for something they haven't even done yet or knew they were capable of? Who are _we_ to judge?"

"You do not have the _luxury_ to speak to me like this," she arched her eyebrow at him.

"Don't I?" he leaned in and whispered ominously in her ear. "You see, I know your secrets. I know everyone's secrets. I'm that fly on the wall." He grinned at her and continued talking softly "And this place. It's a_ brothel_ wrapped in _barbed _wire. A necessary evil, a force of good encased in the _oozing _puss of hypocrisy. But, you can change that. Take a stand. _Do_ something." He slowly pulled away from her ear. "And not just in the name of your own family," he whispered in her face with all the confidence one gets from knowing the secrets of others. "Think about somebody else's children… and _grandchildren_ for a change" Claude watched as Angela didn't flinch once at his words, yet her eyes gave her away. "Don't worry. I won't tell your secrets. They're not worth my time. Or my soul." Claude smirked and walked off. "I am sorry, Mrs. Petrelli," he spoke in his full voice, "But I have to go meet up with my partner. " Claude grinded his large smile. "Get back to Texas." He stared her down. "You get to Texas...much... Mrs. Petrelli?"

She looked at him without a hair out of place and said sternly, "I don't."

"Of course." Claude nodded his head looking at her with an all- knowing eye. "Of course you don't." He grinned large. "I must have been mistaken." Claude walked to the other end of the hallway. "And good luck with that whole exploding man thing," he said sarcastically. Just another thing Claude shouldn't have known about, but did. He turned and looked at her one more time. "I'll keep an eye out myself." And Claude disappeared into the landscape of the building.

Angela furrowed her brow, turned toward the exit, and started for the door at a very quick and angry pace; she was getting out of there.

Bob came up the hallway behind her. "Angela!" he shouted to her, as he walked to catch up with her. "Whoa, wait..." he laughed it off, as if it were just another day at the office. "What's the hurry? Hold on, I'm just about done here, we're doing some experiments..."

"Experiments? This is what you do with our money. You use children as your lab experiments?"

"Ahh...?" He cocked his head to one side. "A child's age does not determine how dangerous they are." His eyes got dark. "You yourself manifested at seventeen," he reminded her pointedly.

"I was sixteen and I wasn't dangerous. At least not to anyone but myself."

"So, we agree danger has nothing to do with age, then?" He had that look of all-knowing smugness. "We can't treat any of them differently, we have to be objective – '_cut out our heart' _... for the greater good, Angela." He spoke his last two lines as if quoting someone; he was, he was quoting them all.

Angela narrowed her eyes at him. "And that includes using your own daughter?"

"Now, what I do with my own daughter, that's none of your business. Elle needs to know what she's capable of, so she's not a danger to herself _and _toothers. This isn't anything I need to remind you of."

"I'm bringing this up with the other founders."

"Go ahead. But, I won't let you put your nose into the way I raise my daughter, Angela. That, you don't get a say over. She's my daughter and it's really, to be honest... frankly, as I've already stated, is...none of your business." He gave her a pointed glare. "I don't meddle with the way you raise your children, I think I deserve the same courtesy. " He paused for a moment. "What we do protects the world from evil, Angela. We protect the world from people who want to do it harm and yes... even if they don't mean to. That means we have to make sacrifices. And we all have made sacrifices." He looked at her in a way that reminded Angela she had known him too long.

"I understand what we do is necessary." Angela said softly and to the point, as if Bob had offended her, and she left his side for the exit. She hadn't gotten far when Bob called to her, making her stop in her tracks.

"Still no dreams about what those boys of yours can do, huh? Pity. But, hey – Arthur didn't manifest until he was in his late twenties, right?" He paused. "There still may be some hope for your boys yet."

Angela didn't let his words buck her as she walked away from Bob with a quick and graceful gait.

Just then a loud noise went off, like an alarm, or a European siren.

"He's escaping!" Angela heard a man yell and before she could look to see where it was all coming from, her body was knocked into by another small body hitting against her torso and legs. She grabbed onto the shoulders of whomever it was and turned to see a young beautiful Haitian boy, about twelve of thirteen, standing before her. Angela smiled at him and he smiled back.

"There he is!' yelled a man who came around the hallway corner to Angela's left.

The Haitian boy lost his smile and hid behind Angela's legs. He couldn't have been that much older than Peter she thought.

"What's going on here?" Bob asked as he approached, a little winded.

"He's blocking our powers and he won't stand still," exclaimed another man who had followed the previous one.

"He's just a child," Angela scolded.

"He's a menace," said the first man.

The Haitian glared at the first man with those amazing eyes of his. Angela glared at Bob and Bob motioned with his head for the men to leave and they obeyed.

Angela looked at The Haitian. "What is your name?" She crouched down to his level.

"He doesn't speak, he's mute." Bob informed her.

"What does he do?" she looked up at Bob for a moment..

"He can take out a memory. Any memory and burns it from your mind. And whenever any one of us gets near him, none of us can use our abilities..." He sounded frustrated.

"Impressive." Angela smiled at the boy and her eyes danced at the possibilities.

"We've been trying to figure out if he can control it, but right now -- we can't keep him near anyone or they become useless. A field agent of ours found him in Haiti. Thompson, he's out of Odessa now– brought the boy in about three months ago – thinks we can use him – which would be very beneficiary, but if he won't stop blocking our powers – I don't know what we're going to do with him."

"Where is his family?"

"He has none. He's ours now."

"Yes, isn't he." She smiled at the Haitian. "He looks dehydrated. Are you thirsty? Would you like a glass of water?"

The Haitian nodded his head.

Angela stood and spoke to the boy in French. "Would you like that?" Every good debutante society girl of the 1960s was taught French and that was why Angela's mother demanded she learn the language – to at least help her find a good husband, she told her daughter. Angela turned to Bob. "Get the boy a glass of water, Bob."

Bob looked at Angela like she had asked him to go to the moon. "I'm not–"

"Water. Now." Angela had a way of being persuasive with very few words.

Bob wasn't very happy about it, but she was his boss, at least he felt her husband was and he obeyed. "Fine." And Bob huffed off with as much politeness as he could muster.

After Bob was gone Angela took the Haitian's hand. "So, you don't have a name do you?" She asked in French.

The Haitian looked up at her and shocked both of them by speaking, and in English. "I have a name..."

Angela smirked; he had tricked them all.

The Haitian continued. "I choose to keep it to myself. My silence is my weapon and my voice is my power. It is my protection."

Angela nodded her head and spoke in French again. "Then it is a secret I will keep for you."

The Haitian answered back in French. "One day, I hope to return this favor." He spoke like a man, although his body still resembled a boy. He would protect her the way she had protected him and one day he would confide in her the secret of his name, and Angela would tell no one.

Angela could see how smart he was. She knelt down, looked the boy in the eye and in French spoke her final line, "I will make sure you are protected." She nodded her head as she could hear Bob coming down the hallway. The Haitian nodded his head back to her and Angela stood.

Bob approached - he handed Angela the water, and she handed it to the boy. The Haitian reached up and took Angela's hand with his free one and Angela smiled at him. Within a year the boy would almost be Angela's height.

The three of them walked down the hall as Angela spoke. "This boy should be an asset to this Company, Bob. His power, if used for us and not against us – it could be everything we have been looking for. Our best defense. You need to handle it more wisely." She knew how to get someone on your side was by appealing to their best interests.

"You mean in the field?"

"One day, perhaps. He's still young. But his talents are of something you can put to good use."

"We've had no progress and right now I'm afraid the only course of action is...elimination."

The Haitian knew that word.

Angela was cross. "He's mute, not dumb, Robert."

Bob didn't like to be called Robert. They stopped walking.

Angela continued talking. "This Company will teach him -- the way we all have. We will teach him to wield his gifts. And he will thank you for this service." Angela squeezed the Haitian's hand. "I will be bringing my objections up with the other founders, but until then I want to hear back that this boy has been treated with the utmost respect-- and that he has the chance to grow up to be a man. He deserves better." She took a soft breath that could only be described as controlled. "We all do. If he is treated well, Bob," she appealed to his Company nature, "The more loyal he will be." She turned to the Haitian. "You are safe now. I have to leave, but I will return to visit you when I can. I don't know when, but I will." She winked at him. She looked at Bob sternly. "Bob." She arched her eyebrow and started for the door.

Bob called after her as she left. "And what happens when someone else gets a hold of him," Bob yelled after her. "If he's used as a weapon against us, we'd all be powerless..."

Angela turned slightly and smirked at Bob by the large Primatech entrance way. "Then aren't you glad you found him first."

And Angela Petrelli left the building.

**Next Chapter:** The Company has Claire. How will Angela save her? Or will she leave her granddaughter to the _wolves_ and let the company just have her?


	16. Chapter Fifteen: Feb 1992

**Chapter Fifteen**

_Angela, Kaito, Arthur, Nathan (23), Baby Claire_, mentions of the Bennets.

* * *

**Angela & Arthur Petrelli**

Manhattan

_Late February, 1992_

* * *

Angela was surprised to find Arthur home during the day. Peter was at school and Nathan was studying for his law boards over at the Columbia University library.

"What's going on? What's wrong?" She knew there had to be a catch.

"Close the door," he softly instructed her.

"Is it Peter?" Angela was agitated.

"No." He walked behind her and closed the bedroom door. "Peter's fine."

"What is it, then?" She hated to be toyed with.

"There's been a fire in Texas."

"A fire? Meredith? Claire, is she alright?!"

Arthur tried to find the best way to tell her. "It's over, Angela." He paused. "The Company – they tried to bag and tag Meredith, I'm sure she was caught by surprise – there was a fire, an explosion, she's dead – the Company has Claire." He took hold of her arms for comfort.

"Noཀ" She broke away from him and started for the door.

"Where are you going?ཀ"

"I can't just stand by and do nothing!"

"Angela," Arthur grabbed her.. "It's over, Angela. We say anything –_anything_ and they know that girl is ours – that she belongs to this family and then the questions come out and they find out we've been hiding that girl from them. Then what? If you try and help her anymore you'll be putting this entire family at risk. You have to let it go, Angela. It's over. Let Claire go!" He let go of her and gestured out with both his hands.

"Not yetཀ" she snarled at him.

"It's overཀ!"

"It's not over until I say it's over!" Her resolve was absolute

"She's in the serpents _teeth,_ Angela. How do you suggest we get her out without it biting our hands off in the process?" He grabbed her by both her arms this time and shook her for a moment. "You can't save yourself by saving her. We've already lost our souls to hell. You can't use her to make it all better. Saving her won't change anything."

"I _just_ want to give her the choices I never had." Her eyes watered. "Please," she pleaded.

He took a breath and let go of her. Arthur walked the length of the room, as if debating something in his head, before turning to her looking spent and deflated. "What do we do then?"

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

Central Park

* * *

Angela looked down at the _Angel of The Water _statue, as she stood on the Bethesda terrace, over looking the fountain. It was late winter, but it felt like an early fall day. Children played around her and young couples walked with baby carriages. Angela wore a heavy black coat and gloves, but it was hardly needed. She looked like an angel herself, standing on the overpass, looking down on the people below, her shoulder length hair being tossed lightly by the cool breeze.

"The angel," Kaito Nakamura's voice caused Angela to turn and look at him. "Now _you _I never took as the nostalgic type, Angela."

Angela motioned with her head and Kaito told his men to leave; he knew the signal.

"Can we walk?" she asked.

Kaito nodded his head and the two walked further into the park.

"What do you want, Angela. I have a feeling this isn't an old friends visit. Usually we meet in my office."

"There's a child. We tried to bag and tag the mother in Texas. There was a fire." Angela put her hands in her pockets as they walked.

"Yess..." Kaito was a man of very few words; he knew sometimes it was best to just listen.

"What is being done with the child?" She was all business.

"You brought me all the way out here for this, to–"

"Humor me." she smiled slyly at him and then looked forward again. "What's to happen to the child?"

"Usual protocol, why?"

"I see..." They walked a step. "Even if her ability is unknown or if she will even manifest?" She set a strand of hair behind her ear. "When the father is unknown?"

"Yes, usually in these cases the child has already manifested, when we take them on..."

"Perhaps new sets of protocol need to be set into motion. You're always very good at doing that."

"Angela, I thought you had given up on this little crusade of yours."

"This is different."

"How?" His voice was forceful, as it resonated through the air.

Angela stopped; she looked around slightly to be sure they weren't being followed.

"I knew there was a reason we didn't meet in my office. What is it, Angela?"

They continued walking.

Finally, Angela spoke. "I came to you, because I know you'd keep my secret, Kaito."

"Of course I will. You can always trust me, Angela."

"Because I know we have the same thoughts about our children and this _Company_..." Her last word ran disdainfully off her lips.

"Does Arthur know you're here...?"

She turned to look at him. "Yes. He doesn't like that I'm coming to you, but we have to. This concerns him as well."

A man on a bike rode past and Angela kept quiet for a moment. After the biker disappeared into the distance, Angela started walking, causing Kaito to follow her down a secluded path, as if nothing was suspect about it at all. As if she wasn't going to a more private place to talk, she was just walking. There, Angela found a bench to sit and Kaito sat down next to her. He knew she was about to confess something to him. He knew her that well. He could see it behind her eyes.

"About two years ago Nathan was in Texas, he,..he... met a woman there, a girl really – well he's only a boy himself..." She took off her gloves slowly by the fingertips. "A youthful folly, an adolescent indiscretion -- nothing to take note of. " She set her gloves on her lap. "But the woman – she's one of us and now... there is a child." Angela held in her tears. "This child, you have. This girl –she is..." She took in a depth breath of emotion. "She's my granddaughter, Kaito. And I have already done everything I can possible think of to keep her from this life and this Company. If I say anything, if Arthur and I say _anything_ we could compromise who she is– and if it's discovered we've been hiding her all this time..." She leaned in closer to him. "I'm trying to save my family, Kaito," she pressed. "You're the only one I trust to turn to with this." Her eyes said it all, how desperate she was. For Angela it was a vulnerable moment; moments she hardly let show anymore. "Will you help me? Will you help me keep my secret?"

Kaito looked at her with a hard face and she didn't know if he would be loyal to her or turn her in. She was taking a chance, but she had no other choice; Kaito really was her last hope. Yet she believed in her heart that he still cared for her - that they still shared the same ideals. Even after so many years, somehow, Angela still had faith - it was all she had left.

* * *

**The Petrellis**

Manhattan

* * *

Nathan, now twenty-three years old, answered the door before Angela could get to it. Angela stopped in her tracks when Kaito entered the house. She knew what Kaito would say would make or break Claire's future. Seeing him that afternoon had brought up old memories. Good memories, which was rare for Angela. Angela and Kaito stared at each other in the silence; they didn't need words to speak. Kaito nodded his head. Angela knew that meant it was done.

"Nathan, go check on your brother for me, would you?" She gestured with her hand, but didn't look at him.

"Ma, I was just—" Nathan was too busy studying for his finals to want to deal with his little brother.

"Please, Nathan. Check on your brother." She looked at him sternly, her hands clasped together in front of her.

Nathan wasn't sure what was going on. "Ahh, yeah... sure, Ma." He looked at Kaito for a moment before making his way up the stairs to check on Peter.

Angela led Kaito into Arthur's study, where her husband was waiting for them. The fireplace was lit; it crackled bright and loud. The lighting was low, keeping the colors in the room dim with offsets of bright light near the lighting fixtures throughout the room. With the dark, thick night sky outside it made the room feel solemn. Arthur was facing the fireplace, his back to the door as they entered.

Kaito walked in first and Angela closed the door behind them with a loud crack.

"It's done," she said firmly.

Arthur turned slowly toward them and Kaito and Arthur caught eyes. Angela could tell they were acting like tigers, almost mentally circling each other. They had been at occasional meetings in larger groups, but this was the first time in almost fifteen years that they were really alone in a room together - forced to do talk face to face. Plus, there was the added tension of what they both knew: Arthur hated to be asking Kaito for such a favor, but Arthur had no choice.

"I think we're all adults." Angela said briskly. "I think we can leave the past in the past."

There was a small pause between all of them.

"So, it's done?" Arthur finally spoke, showing he could move on to what was at hand.

"Yes." Kaito set his briefcase on Arthur's desk and opened it with a loud snap. He removed a file and closed the case. He handed the file to Angela. "His name is Bennet. He was the one who tried to bag and tag the mother...him and the invisible man, Claude."

Kaito faced Angela and Arthur as Angela looked over the file. "Wife. Sandra. 28. Housewife. He is young, but very loyal. One of our most promising new men at the Company. Bob likes him, he is one of Ivan's trainees, so it wasn't hard to get his approval past the others for the assignment. He has a home life, he is loyal. That is why I chose him."

Arthur walked up to Angela and she handed him the file to look over.

"My argument was that it was best for the child until she manifests. Until then we have no use for her."

"Then what?" Arthur asked.

"We will instruct Bennet that if and when she manifests..."

Angela and Arthur looked at each other.

"He must then give her back to the Company. That she belongs to us. It was the only way I could get them to agree to this. I had to make it look like it was with our best interest in mind. Once she manifests, I can do no more. This is the best I can offer."

Angela and Arthur looked at each other and Angela nodded her head.

"We have a back-up plan, don't worry." Arthur threw the file on his desk with a clap. "When the time comes, we'll be ready." He looked at Angela and she looked back at him in silent agreement.

"When does it happen?" Angela asked.

"Tomorrow. The Deveaux roof. By tomorrow afternoon your granddaughter will have a normal life in Texas, as Claire Bennet...and no one will know she was ever a Petrelli."

Arthur was silent for a moment. He took a breath and looked Kaito in the eye. "Thank you," he said with emotion in his voice - it was very big of Arthur. It still didn't mean Arthur liked him.

"Your secret is safe with me." Kaito bowed his head and Arthur did the same.

Angela eyed Arthur to see if he was alright, but he had already given her his back.

"I'll show you out." Angela opened the door to the study and walked Kaito to the door.

As Angela and Kaito reached the foyer and the entranceway, what they couldn't possibly know was that Nathan was making his way down the stairs above them from Peter's room. Nathan stopped at the landing just in time to watch his mother lean in and hug Kaito goodbye.

"Thank you," Angela whispered into his ear, but Nathan couldn't hear that part, as the hug between Kaito and Angela lasted a little bit longer then it should between a married women and another man who was not her husband. Angela wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and let go of the hug.

Kaito squeezed her hand for one last moment, nodded his head and finally left the Petrelli home for good; he would never return there again.

Angela walked back to Arthur's study as Nathan watched on from above, suspicious of something, yet having no idea what was really going on under the surface. Not knowing that they had been playing with his life like he was a chess piece. Nathan had no idea the hug concerned him.

Angela found Arthur seated at his desk looking over Bennett's file. They Angela exchanged looks. He pushed the file forward to the front of his desk and leaned back in his chair, watching her. Angela walked right up to the file, took it in her left hand and threw it in the fire with one soft, skillful gesture. She didn't even watch it burn. She didn't have to; she knew it would.

"If they ever discover what we've done, Angela.' He said in his most graveled, deep, voice. " One of us must take the fall... the sole blame." He looked at her hard. "We both can't go down with this ship. Someone has to stay behind to protect this family."

Angela looked at him with her stern eyes of steel. "Agreed."

He nodded his head slightly. "That's my girl."

Yes, she was his girl. After all, Angela Petrelli was a direct creation of her husband, if they would admit it or not. Angela had learned well, and sacrificing herself for others, for a larger goal, was not something she was averse to; it was part of her life now. She was first and foremost a mother - just one who wasn't adverse to violence if need be. Angela and Arthur Petrelli understood what morally grey meant; they, after all, had helped invent it.

* * *

**Angela & Kaito**

_Downtown Manhattan_

_Kirby Plaza_

* * *

Angela was surprised when the next morning she was asked to Kaito's office by his assistant. She felt it was safe; after all she was meeting Kaito at his Kirby Plaza office, leaving her nowhere near Charles' place and the "drop off site," as they were now calling it.

She was led into Kaito's office and he nodded to his men to leave them alone.

Angela eyed him in her way. "Three times in one week. I think this is a record for us." She took off her gloves and looked around, setting them between her fingers. " Well, a new record." She gestured with her head and walked toward him. It was then that she heard a baby cry. Kaito stepped out of the way to reveal Claire was in a bassinet behind him.

It was like her breath stopped and her entire stomach sank to the ground. She was frozen. She was caught, scared like a dear in the headlights.

"It's the child from the fire. I'm sure I mentioned the case." He circled her. "I'm doing the handoff today. This afternoon. "

Angela was not pleased; her mouth seemed to seethe with silent fury and without a word she turned toward the door; she had to get out of there.

Kaito took her arm, stooping her in her tracks. He whispered to her, close, so the cameras couldn't hear him or see his mouth move, "You will regret this, Angela, if you don't at least take a look at her." He broke away and spoke normally. "I know how interested you are with children within this Company. Perhaps you would like to take a look." Kaito knew she would hate him for this, but he didn't care, he knew it was something he had to do. For Angela he had to do it.

Angela took a breath and sucked in all her emotions, like she always did. She turned toward the bassinet. It wasn't that she didn't want to see Claire; she was just afraid of how she would react. She was afraid of caring. Caring even more then she already did for Nathan's daughter. Fearing that with one look she would be lost- finished.

Angela had to take another deep breath. She would have to do this; she could do this. Finally, Angela took the final step and saw her granddaughter, in person, for the first time, after seeing her so often in dreams. And she was right, seeing Claire set Angela's emotions raging. Her eyes turned red from holding her tears in. She sent a shaky hand toward Claire, but stopped and pulled it back. She tugged in her lips and took another breath; her head swayed from side to side from the weight of it. She gulped and set her arm out again toward Claire, this time setting her fingers on the little girls chest, rustling her hands over the warm fabric of Claire's clothes. It was all so overwhelming.

There was a knock at the door. Angela pulled her hand away sharply and walked away from the baby.

"It's time to leave, Mr. Nakamura," said a voice.

"Thank you, please inform my son we are leaving," Kaito answered.

Angela kept her back to the door and Claire. When the door closed she turned to Kaito.

"It's the right thing to do." Angela 's eyes were wet, but her face was resolute. "It's the right thing to do."

"Yes." Kaito nodded his head.

Angela left without saying another word. She walked to her car without saying a word. She rode in the back seat on the ride home without saying a word. Walked to her home and up the stairs to her bedroom without one word or gesture. It was only then, alone, where no one else could see her that Angela Petrelli cried - for it was the right thing to do. Weakness in public was a weapon others could use upon her; she would never let that happen. If her weakness was a weapon, only she would use it.

And when Arthur Petrelli found her she cried in his arms, for it was the only safe place she felt she could. And that night Arthur made love to his wife for the first time in a long time. It was a beautiful moment between them.

And as she slept, Angela did something she hadn't done in a long time - she had a pleasant dream. She dreamt of the Bennet home: of Sandra and Noah Bennet and the parents they would be to Claire. Of Claire and Lyle and carpooling and cheerleading practices and birthday parties. And when she awoke she whispered in her husband's ear, "It was the right thing to do."

Kaito had chosen Bennet wisely. He would protect her; he would take care of her. Claire would have what Angela never did: "a choice."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Heidi


	17. Chapter Sixteen: Heidi

Chapter Sixteen

_(Nathan/Heidi, Arthur/Angela, Peter, The Haitian, Birth of and mentions of Simon & Monty,_

* * *

**1994**

* * *

When the future Mrs. Heidi Petrelli was officially introduced to the Petrelli Family, she had been dating Nathan for a little under a year. Nathan wanted to be sure of a lot of things before he introduced Heidi to his parents, and Angela knew that. The wise choice, Angela thought, although Nathan never confided that secret to Angela, only to Peter or his father. Nathan was considered a very sought-after bachelor in New York City at the time, despite his family's now dirty reputation. Although Nathan seemed to be trying to go against that reputation by taking a job in the district attorney's office, something Heidi found courageous in many respects.

"He must be serious about this one," Angela retorted through her reading glasses as she sat in bed with her husband, and a political book she had been given as a gift.

"I suppose so," Arthur said, before kissing her goodnight. "Let's see how _special_ she is tomorrow." He turned off his bedside light as Angela nodded her head, yes.

That night Angela's dream didn't make much sense. People with abilities in cages; being hunted. It was always her worst fear, something everyone in the Company knew would happen if people like themselves were revealed to the public. But was this dream real or just standing in for her own feelings and fears? Angela no longer kept a dream book, so she tucked the thoughts back into another part of her mind, where perhaps she could make sense of it later.

Angela Petrelli was now forty-eight years old.

Before Nathan and Heidi arrived for dinner, Arthur found Angela asleep in a chair in the living room, a book on her lap.

The doorbell rang and Arthur motioned to his almost fifteen-year-old son Peter, "Wake your mother."

Angela opened her eyes to her son Peter's sweet, large smile. "Hey sleepy head, " he said to her, just as she used to say to him as a child. "Come on, Nathan's here."

Angela smiled for she had been having a pleasant dream. She was visiting Claire, watching her grow up, and it gave Angela pleasure to watch Claire at important events in the girl's life, watching over her the way no one else could, like an angel. But to Angela it still wasn't enough and she and her husband had a plan waiting in the wings, biding its time for when Claire finally manifested, for the time when hiding the girl in plain sight was no longer an option. Based on her dreams, Angela guessed Claire would manifest around sixteen, just as Angela had - Claire had twelve years to go.

"Do, I have to?" Angela groaned in a joking tone.

"Yeah... I think so." Peter gave his mother an off-center smile and motioned with his head toward the door.

"You know...we could just get out of here, grab a slice of pizza, no one would be the wiser." She squinted her eyes, looking at him impishly.

"This is an interesting look for you." He raised his eyebrows. "You're scared."

"No... I'm not scared, _please._" She stood up from her chair. "I'm just tired. Besides, you owe me."

"And why is that?" He smirked at her.

Angela put her arm around her son and guided him toward the foyer. "You had a very large head."

"Yeah, nice, like that's my fault." Peter laughed as they reached the foyer and Nathan and Heidi. Peter smiled at Nathan and his new girlfriend, whom he had already met, as Angela took a breath, tossed her head back, and put on her best and most polite public smile.

Peter saw that change in his mother and wondered why she kept herself so guarded, why she felt at times se felt she had to be two people.

* * *

**The Petrelli Home**

_1995_

* * *

Nathan leaned on the lip of a small shelf in his father's study, looking as if he had something important to say. He gripped an old baseball he had taken off the shelf, which had been in his father's office since as far as the boy could remember. Of course, Nathan was no longer a boy, he was a lawyer, twenty-seven-years old, an ex-military man, and a pride to his family - he was their hero. Nathan's hero was standing right in front of him: his father.

Nathan's father practiced his golf game by putting on a small green he had set up in front of his desk. Angela, sitting in the living room, pretended she couldn't hear the two men as she put together a scrapbook of old pictures.

Nathan looked on from the other side of the study watching his father. "Pop..." he paused, a little unsure how to ask. "When did you know... I mean... What...what made you fall in love with Ma? How did you know?"

Arthur got a devilish look on his face and paused from his putting. "She had a great ass." He sent his golf ball forward and it hit its mark – hole in one.

"Pop!?" Nathan stood up in protest; he didn't want to hear that.

Arthur walked toward Nathan with his putter in hand. "I'm tellin' ya –you had to see it..." he teased his son.

"Pop!?" He gripped the baseball and gestured his arms out at his father. "Like now I'll ever get that image out of my head."

Arthur laughed. "Ya gotta learn kid, your parents are only human," he patted his son on the side of his face like a good Italian man. He raised his eyebrows and crossed back to his desk.

"I'm serious, Pop. Come on. I never asked you about this before. I...I wanna know." He got a little shy and boyish. "Ya know - that when you met Ma... how you knew that she was the one. The one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with..."

"That I loved her?" Arthur asked as he set his putter up against the side of the fireplace.

Arthur looked off through the open double doors of his study at Angela, remembering the girl she had been. "Well, she was beautiful for sure." He put his hands in his pockets and nodded his head. "She had that beauty, still does, that took my breath away – Ahhh and she was so young. " He opened his mouth and nodded his head. "I couldn't believe how young she was - her skin was so white I thought I'd break it if I touched it. And I just had to have her." He looked over at his son. "She was like a babble in my collection. Just another thing on my shelf... and my mistake was I treated her that way. I wasn't mature enough to see her as a person; I saw her as a thing – I wanted to **possess **her. I wanted to live up to her. I was blinded. I was weak. I wanted to be _enough_ for her. Her smile, her laugh, her intelligence..." He made his hand into a fist for a moment, "That fire in her soul." He put his hand back in his pocket and looked at his son. "And I've put her through so much. Too much. I...I..." He trailed off, but got connected back to his objective. " I have a lot of regrets, Nathan – but I think the biggest one - the things I did wrong. The thing I can't make right. Is what I did to her, what I can't take back – shaped who she became. "

"Pop, I'm not following-"

"Your mother has lived through a lot because of me and my actions. She was too young for all of this; I should have let her study –travel. I shouldn't have married her so young." He paused and looked at Nathan. "And she loves you boys so much, Nathan." He walked toward his son. "You know that, right?"

"I do, Pop," he said sheepishly. He wasn't sure where it was all going.

"This is about Heidi?" Arthur put his hand on his son's shoulder and gripped it. "You think you're in love with Heidi?"

Nathan looked away and then raised his eyes up at his father. "I think so," he nodded his head.

"You buy a ring?" Arthur asked.

"Last week..." Nathan had a sheepish look of pride on his face. He was obviously too afraid to ask her yet.

"It big? Never mess with a woman and her jewelry, I learned that from your mother."

"Yeah, yeah..." he nodded his head in a self-conscious way.

Arthur looked at his son with such pride, his eyes popped. "Well, then congratulations." Arthur grinned. "Your mother will be pleased."

"Really? I think Heidi's scared of her." Nathan joked, but really he wasn't. Nathan reached his arm back and scratched the back of his head.

"She's very protective of you boys." Arthur looked at his son and felt that warm fatherly feeling he had first felt in the hospital, when Nathan was born, so many years ago. He had to take a deep breath to hold in his emotion. Nathan was a true and loyal son to Arthur and made him feel, inside, as if Angela had given birth to his best friend. "No..." He shook his head and placed his other hand on his son's shoulder. "She'll be very happy."

Angela smiled from the living room. She knew she would never be completely happy with any woman her sons brought home; it was just who she was. But Heidi was a perfect wife for Nathan in the best way Angela knew how and the only way Arthur was alluding to. And that was that unlike all of the other Petrellis, Heidi was just nothing _special_. She was the perfect wife for Nathan in Angela's eyes. The cycle could stop; Angela only hoped.

* * *

**Nathan's Wedding**

The Central Park Boathouse

**1997**

* * *

Angela Petrelli didn't worry about her son when he went off to war. When he flew missions in Bosnia, Serbia and Rwanda, because she knew his destiny, she knew he would be safe. She knew his plane would be shot down and that the cuts on his chins would later become scars, and that he would walk with a cane for three months. That was as far as the story went. Angela saw him coming home, but she also knew that history could be changed. So, perhaps, she was in denial about how inevitable the future could be.

Still, Angela took too much notice and too much attention to Nathan's wedding than Arthur thought was necessary. And when Heidi asked Nathan to find a way to get his mother out of her way, on what was "her" big day and not Angela's — Arthur Petrelli laughed at the situation harder than he had in years. He laughed at his own wife; it was just who he was.

Angela stood off to the side as the photographer took pictures of her boys, nicely dressed in their black ties and suits. Flash. Flash. Flash. Angela brimmed with pride. She had no idea it would be the picture she would most treasure when mourning the death of one of them. One would say these pictures would become infamous, but all Angela Petrelli knew, at the time, was they were pictures that already had a reserved place in her living room.

For all of the Petrelli boys' lives there was a table in the living room filled with pictures, so full it almost looked like a forest; many visitors to the house would remark on it. Until Peter was eleven, the pictures had all been set on a piano. No one in the Petrelli home actually played the piano. Nathan wanted to as a child, but he was told it would disturb his mother, while the parade of doctors came in and out of her room trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Peter didn't even understand it was a piano until he was four; it was just a place to put the pictures.

Still, it was a monument that had always been around and something, Heidi would say, that spoke louder than words. And although they got along, but still hardly agreed, Heidi would tell Nathan that when she thought about all of those pictures in her mother-in-law's living room, she knew the woman meant well, as much as often times

"But, isn't that what mother-in-laws are for?" she would joke to Peter, whom she got along with famously.

"She means well," Peter would say with a smile, hating to really be on anyone's side in a difficult situation.

"We all do." Heidi would say, before giving Peter a hug and asking him about his day, what college he was planning to attend or how she hoped her children would be as kind and understanding as Nathan's little brother.

Most people at the wedding couldn't believe that Angela was the mother of the groom. Heidi's parents were at least ten to fifteen years older than she was. Angela loved that. She loved that power.

Long gone were the days when Angela's youth and beauty got men's heads to turn, doors to open, and opinions to change. She was still a beautiful woman, as Arthur would tell her – a handsome woman, "for her age." But Angela no longer had that power a woman like Heidi had. And Angela remembered how much she loved it when she had that power and how it made her naive and foolish. Angela Petrelli was a woman well equated with the drawbacks of power.

"There has to be something you like about your power," Charles once asked her. "It can't all be a burden to you?"

"Truthfully..." She smiled, fingering the edge of the glass. "I love the way they look at me. The way they revere my thoughts, my words, the way the hairs on the back of their necks stand up when I enter a room. I loved the respect."

Yes, Angela Petrelli was well equated with the spoils of power, and now she was slowly paying for it. Her foolish follies of epic proportion had thrown her down a sinkhole she was now crawling out of by her fingernails. But today was a happy day; there weren't many of those.

Yet Angela still seemed to drift into the past on that day, something she almost never did - Angela Petrelli always looked to the future. Only fools look to the past, she often thought, but then who wanted to wallow in regret all the time?

Angela remembered the day she told Nathan Claire was dead, which was a lie, and that Meredith was dead, which she thought was the truth. He cried in her arms, something Nathan hadn't done since he was a small child. She held his head in her hands and brought it to her chest, gently stroking her red fingernails through his soft hair.

"Shhhh..." She told him, like a child, "Shhhh," knowing full well she had caused the pain in her son's heart. Yet she felt it was the right thing to do.

Nathan's folly would not ruin another life as her folly had ruined hers. Angela Petrelli was a woman well acquainted with the truth; she just knew when and how to wield it. Angela knew full well that she was committing a wrong toward Nathan, but she felt it was a right towards Claire. And she knew she was committing a sin as a mother toward her son, but she didn't care.

She didn't care because she believed she was saving not just Claire, but Nathan, saving him from her own despair, the despair the life would cause that girl, and him, if she stayed a Petrelli. Yes, Angela Petrelli told herself she did it all because it was the best for everyone. But really it was the best for Angela. And she knew that too, deep down she knew, had to have known, that.

"We have a problem, " Arthur scooped his arm into Angela's arm as she walked outside of the party, surveying the guests on the veranda.

Angela kept on walking as if nothing was wrong, looking up at him with her eye balls, she knew those words weren't good. Redundant.

After about five steps, Arthur looked around and opened a small glass door for Angela. Angela looked around and entered the door; Arthur followed and closed the door behind him.

"Stafford escaped," Arthur pulled the curtains closed.

"How?"

"Adam tried another prison break. Stafford got out in the melee."

"Anyone else?"

"A few rogues, but they were caught." Arthur took his gun out. It was just a precaution. "He's on his way here."

"What?"

"He knows who we are, Angela. Of course he'd come after us first. Has he been in your dreams?"

"No."

"I called in back-up. Just be aware. You see him, you call me."

She nodded her head.

"Keep an eye on Nathan and Peter."

"I will."

He nodded his head and walked out the back door.

About a half hour later Angela was doing her duty as the mother of the groom when she saw Harry peek his head into the hall to get her attention. Angela excused herself and exited out into the hallway.

Harry took her by the waist and whispered in her ear as they made their way through the hallway. "We got him; it's too dangerous to take him out in the woods – someone could see - we need you to watch the door."

Angela eyed him.

"It wasn't my idea."

They reached the door Harry was referring to. It was the door to the same room Arthur had spoken to Angela in only moments before.

"By the way, sweetie," Harry eyed her. "You look simply ravishing." He smiled. "I'd eat you up, but I'm a vegetarian now." He smirked and entered the door. Angela kept watch.

After about five minutes, Angela caught sight of Peter.

"Hey, Mom." He walked over to her.

"Hello, dear." She smiled

He kissed her on the cheek. "Dad in there? Nathan's looking for him."

"He's making a phone call." The door opened and a rush of air was heard. Angela grabbed the door and slammed it closed. "He wants his privacy." She said without batting an eye, holding the door shut by the doorknob, and the weight of her body.

"Okay?" he was confused.

"We'll be right there. Go tell your brother. Your father wants me to wait for him."

Peter looked at her funny.

"He's on the phone with Mr. Linderman." She nodded her head. "You understand, Peter." Angela looked at Peter and dusted a piece off lint of her son's shoulder.

Peter got a sour look on his face and started to walk from the door. Angela knew just the right way to get her son to go away and just the right thing to bring him back again, if she needed to.

Peter walked away from his mother with an odd feeling in his gut. He looked back, one last time, to see that his mother was still perched at the door, as if guarding it. Finally, Arthur Petrelli emerged to the sudden shock and relief of his mother.

"It's done." He said adjusting his tux and bow tie. Arthur Petrelli took in a deep breath. "Oh, man that felt good – it's good to be alive, isn't it?" He grabbed Angela and pulled her close, causing her to let out a yelp of surprise. He reached down grabbed her ass for a moment and kissed her hard and long - Angela was shocked.

"Arthur!" Angela then caught sight of Peter, who was looking at them.

Peter tried to hold in his laughter.

Angela looked around, acting as if she was mortified that her husband had done such a thing in public, but Peter could see she secretly loved it. It was then that Peter saw for the first time since he was a small child how much his parents loved each other. He didn't understand it, but he got it. And he hoped some day he'd have someone to love like that.

It was then that Peter turned toward the door of the main banquet hall and he caught sight of his brother dancing with his new bride. And Peter too wished he could find a love like Heidi and one day be a great man like his brother. They didn't always agree, but Peter looked at his brother with hero's eyes and hoped one day he could grow up and be like him, Peter was only eighteen.

That night Arthur Petrelli had his second "heart attack".

* * *

**Two Years Later**

* * *

"It's a boy!" Nathan screamed, dressed in scrubs from head to toe. "A boy!" He took his baby brother by the neck and shoulder and hugged him tightly. "A boy!" He held his brother's face in both his hands.

Peter was elated for his brother.

"Eight pounds, seven ounces." He reached toward his mother.

"How's Heidi?" Angela asked, kissing her son on the check and hugging him.

"She's great, she's doing great, Ma." Nathan looked around, as he released from his mother's embrace. "Where's Pop?"

"Pressing business, he couldn't stay. He wishes he could have."

Arthur Petrelli seemed to be away at the oddest times. He wasn't in the hospital when Peter was born, or now, at the moment his first grandson was born, but Angela was. Company business took Arthur from his family, but never Angela. But then again, her family had become her company business in so many ways.

"It's a boy! Whoooo." Nathan yelled. "I just can't— I'm too excited now. I'm gonna call Heidi's family.. I.. A boy!" And Nathan ran back into the maternity ward.

Peter laughed and Angela smiled bittersweetly -- a small smile that turned into a larger one.

"Looks like you're an uncle," Angela told him, as they looked off at Nathan in the distance.

"And you're a grandmother, how does it make you feel?"

"Old." She said with her wicked sense of humor.

"Oh, come on. First time grandmothers are always young." He put his hand on her shoulder and she took her hand in his.

But of course, Angela knew she wasn't a first-time grandmother at all. And Claire was growing strong and healthy and, most importantly, away from her world, away from being special.

And when their second grandchild, but their first known to the world, was only three days old, Angela Petrelli slapped her husband across the face as soon as he returned home. Not just with her hand, but with her accusations. It was something he was used to by now, not the slapping, but being accused of something he hadn't yet done.

"You looked at her picture," Angela said in her demanding tones.

"Whose?" he said as if to say, "Have you not learned by now, I have no idea what you're talking about?"

"Claire's."

"When?"

"We need to keep our objectivity. You know this, Arthur."

"It's not fair, Angela. You get to see her. You see her in your dreams everyday. I don't even know what she looks like!"

Angela walked up to him her eyes brimming with anger and emotion. "Just don't look at the picture." She gritted her teeth and left their bedroom.

* * *

**Five Years Later**

* * *

When Angela heard through vague Company channels that Claude had been killed, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Not in an evil way, not in a cruel way, it was just business - family business. Now no one but Angela and her husband, held certain secrets. It was just the way it was.

And on that sunny day in March, Angela Petrelli answered the phone, a call she had been waiting for, a call she had been waiting years to take. She answered in French, serious, with very few words. Short, clipped sentences to save time.

And after Angela hung up the phone she caught her face in the mirror. Her fifty-three-year old face looking back at her and she felt no longer young, but then she hadn't felt that way in years.

Angela would soon be a grandmother for the second time, officially, that was, another boy for Nathan. The second of "two sons", just like she had once told Arthur so many years ago, only this time Angela kept her dreams to herself. There would be no prophecies spoken out loud, on this or many other occasions in her sons' lives. Angela Petrelli would just push her agenda, like most mothers, through cajoling and mother knows best comments. Just another way Angela felt she was protecting her family. Just another way she had no idea she was wrong about. Just another deception; it was all old hat by now.

For Angela had seen her sons and most people at their best and at their worst. To paraphrase what Claude would later tell her son Peter, "how people act when nobody's around, is who they truly are"; it was, after all, when people showed their true colors. Yes, Angela Petrelli felt she knew her sons better than they knew themselves; it would be just one of many ways she would be wrong. Just another mistake in the fire, too many to mention now. Angela did know her sons, know them very well, and in some respects better than they knew themselves - she just underestimated the fact that they were, after all, her children - that they were, after all, Petrellis.

The next day, while her husband was at work and Angela Petrelli was alone in her house, a housewife and mother whose sons had grown and left the nest, she opened her front door to find a tall, beautiful, Haitian man standing before her. Grown and with a serene look on his face and in his eyes, he smiled at her as if this was a long time coming. Angela smiled back and nodded at the man this boy had become. Around the boy's neck was the godsend symbol, a gift from the boy's father, that reminded Angela how much the symbol connected them all and was beyond all logic, it just was. Angela Petrelli may have been the closest thing The Haitian had to a mother, but she was not his mother. Their mutual affection for each other was only based on deep respect and gratitude for acts gone past. She had protected him all those years ago, protected him since. And now it was time for The Haitian to return the favor.

* * *


	18. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

_Peter, Arthur/Angela, Bob, Nathan, HRG, Heidi, (talk of Claire)_

_**Please remember to review good or bad, I need to know if its all worth it and how to improv if I need to. Even a "hi. bye"**_

* * *

Peter Petrelli had always liked dogs. But while Nathan, his brother, would have straight out asked or demanded for one as a child, Peter would only sit in his room and dream of one. He knew his parents weren't dog people, so he kept his inclination to himself. Yet, it was hard not to notice the look on Peter's face when he saw a dog on the street, at a friend's home, or the theme that started to emerge in the small sketches found in the corners of the young boy's notebook.. When Peter was eight and Nathan was nineteen, Nathan bought Peter a dog, a huge Bernese Mountain / Saint Bernard mix, a picture of the dog still sits next to the rows of pictures in Angela's living room. The dog choice fit Nathan's personality perfectly.

"That dog is too big for him _and_ this house," Angela demanded.

"Well, it's my gift and he can't return it." Nathan said forcefully, but with his great smile and an air of mischief.

Angela wasn't happy.

One day, about five months later, Angela was standing on the sidewalk talking to someone politely, Peter and Angela can't remember who, while Peter, off to the side behind her, played with his dog, petting and nuzzling him, his small hands holding the dog's light blue leash.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the dog busted from Peter's tiny grip and darted out into the street. Peter, out of instinct, ran after the dog at full force.

Angela turned her head behind her, as she saw her son dart past her at a lighting speed. "Peter!" she yelled, reaching out her arm and taking two huge steps toward him, grabbing on to him and stopping him as he reached the curb.

Peter struggled to get away and Angela had to crouch down and wrap her entire arm around him, holding him to her chest, so Peter wouldn't run off.

The sound of a car screeching to a stop filled the Manhattan air.

"Noo!!" little Peter cried out, as he watched his beloved dog fall to his death on the pavement.

Angela pulled Peter closer in what looked like a loving hug, but what she was really trying to do was keep Peter from running out into the New York City street as she felt him struggle beneath her grip.

"Why did you stop me!?" Peter wailed, as tears ran down his face.

"Shhh." Angela cooed in his ear to calm him. "Shhh."

"I could have saved him." Peter tried to hold in his tears.

"No. No you couldn't." Angela informed him softly, as she tried to soothe him. "You would have gotten yourself killed, " she remarked in a sterner manner.

"I don't care, I don't care!" Peter whimpered as tears, once again, started to overcome his eyes.

Angela turned her son toward her forcefully, holding him tight by his forearms with both hands. She looked him dead in the eye. "Listen to me," her voice was full of concern and purpose." Don't you _ever_ think like that. **Ever**! Do you hear me, Peter. Getting yourself killed by running out into the street to save that dog – accomplishes nothing. Your death affects more people than that dog's does. If you died, it would affect more than you, it would affect me, your father, Nathan – your friends – the person in that car that hit you, that person's family – their children. You have to think about the larger picture when it comes to your actions, Peter. You can't only do what you want to do, you have to think of the larger _purpose_, the larger goal –the few for the many. While the death of your dog hurts you, Peter – your death affects and hurts _many_ more than just you. Sometimes, no matter how much it hurts us personally, in our hearts, we must put our own personal feelings aside for what is good -- " Her voice calmed down to a low serious tone. "For the many. Do you understand, Peter? Your feelings and thoughts are nothing compared to the feelings, thoughts – the lives of others. Tell me you understand me, Peter? This is important. It is important that you understand me, Peter."

Little Peter nodded his head as small tears fell down his cheeks. Angela hugged him for a brief moment, his tears soaking the back of her neck. She slowly lifted her son away from her, dried his tears with her fingers and smiled at him. It was a moment Peter would never forget, it was a lesson he took to his heart, he just didn't take it the way Angela had intended it.

**2001**

Arthur Petrelli rarely visited the Company anymore. He was always too busy with clients and Linderman. He, like many of the founders now, was a busy man with important obligations that did not include visiting the "business " he had a hand in. Besides, Arthur was a high ranking founder, he didn't do that anymore. Or at least he didn't choose to. Arthur Petrelli was a regal man who demanded respect from everyone, even from his wife and his wife was the same in return; they were a perfect match. Still, Arthur had many issues that plagued him. Issues he would pass along to his sons, whether he wanted to or not.

Arthur still had an office in Kirby Plaza, just like the rest of them, but Kirby Plaza wasn't more than labs, offices and no major jail cells what so ever – it was more for business. Therefore, if Arthur, or any of the founders wanted to check up on their "investment" and inspect the daily goings on of the bag and tag that had to be done at Primatech Research or Primatech Paper. Since Hartsdale NY was closer to New York City most of Arthur's visits were done at Primatech Research. He still did it rarely, Linderman almost never. Arthur felt ignorance was the truest evil of all – he would not aloud himself to be a figure head – the business at The Company was too important.

When founders did visit places like Hartsdale they met with very few people. Anonymity was paramount for the safety of one's family and person. That's why it was so surprising to Arthur when he crossed paths with Noah Bennet. For so many reasons, if he had known the man was there he would have made himself scarce. If he had known perhaps none of it would have happened, perhaps history would have taken a different turn, but that's for another chapter.

Arthur had of course taken over Bob's office while he was there, something they all did when they arrived in Hartsdale - Linderman, Kaito, even Angela. Taking over Bob's office with their own space and their own gumption. It was something Bob hated, but was of course used to by now – it was just the unspoken hierarchy to which Bob played second fiddle. It was enough to give a man a complex; Bob was lucky his_ talents _had gotten him a long way with women. Elle's mother was an example of how having a golden touch could give a man things other men could only dream of - and that included pretty blondes.

Still, Bob respected the unspoken line of succession, most of them were, after all, more powerful than him, but that didn't mean he wasn't waiting in the wings with bated breath - plans and schemes. It didn't mean he wasn't someone who was capable of a hostile takeover.

If his eyes would have given him away, Arthur Petrelli would have been in big trouble. But, lucky for him, by this time in his life at the age of nearly 60, Arthur knew how to be covert. When men can read minds and women can dream of the future, one learns quickly how to not let something as simple as one's face give away one's secrets.

The two men shook hands. By this time Noah had met Kaito, Bob and now Arthur. Arthur purposely left out his last name. But, that was what was done at the Company. Last names were rarely used.

"Call me Arthur." Petrelli nodded his head and Bennet grinned professionally.

These two men had so much in common, besides their love for Claire. They were both pragmatic Company men, who understood the madness that they made company with. They were both passionate, not averse to violence to make it count, and they both were passionate about protecting their family. They were realists, they were honorable men by their own standards, and they both had grey hues of liquid morality kept inside them by a hard outside shell. If they had known the binds they both shared, the two would have gotten along famously. They were men whose convictions and off-the-deep-end commitment would in the future get them both killed. Only one would recover.

Arthur and Noah talked business and only business. Arthur made sure to make no references to Claire, AKA the child everyone knew the man kept as his own. Noah Bennet seemed like a nice enough man, as Kaito had told him, loyal, eager, determined - the kind of man, as Bob once said "Once he get's something in his teeth he'll never let go." There was no doubt in the minds of Arthur or anyone within the Company that knew or met Noah Bennet, that he would never put the girl before Company interests. Therefore, once the girl manifested Arthur and Angela knew that the second act of this play would begin. Although, perhaps Bennet would never find out, Arthur wondered, never find out what Claire could do - after all Petrellis were very good at hiding their secrets.

And then just as what seemed like the briefest meeting in history was about to end and the two men would go their separate ways for a lifetime, Bob threw a subject into the room, seemingly out of nowhere.

"How's that foundling of yours?" Bob questioned, yet with very little concern about the child.

"I'm sorry?" Arthur asked as he set a file onto the desk in front of him. He looked up at the two men.

"Bennet here is taking care of that child who was rescued from that fire in Texas."

Noah nodded his head. "She's doing well. No signs of manifestation. But, it's still early. She's only nine. We have time." Noah smiled and nodded his head again. He still had so much youth left inside of him. That would change soon, just as it had changed Arthur Petrelli. "How do you find fatherhood?" Arthur questioned, yet wondered to himself if perhaps he shouldn't have.

What Arthur didn't know was that Bennet, much like himself, would have to be careful with

his answers. "I'm not really her father... surrogate father, really. She's just an assignment," He looked over at Bob and then back at Arthur. " I understand that."

Arthur would never know that Bennet was lying.

"You have no other children?"

"A son. Lyle. Younger. He's four... almost five."

"How do you find it?" Arthur waited for an answer as if he was a professor quizzing a student. Perhaps Arthur was just checking in, getting some reassurance or peace of mind.

"I'm on business a lot."

"Of course."

Bennet walked a few steps into the room. "Do you have children, sir?" Bennet asked, trying to take control of the conversation and the subject off him.

Bob took a step forward and Arthur waved him off.

"Yes, I have two boys...and two grandsons." Arthur sat on the corner of Bob's desk.

"Then you know. Fatherhood. It's...it's... that fine line. A fine line between being the bad guy and being their hero. Telling them what they have to do to keep them safe and letting them make their own mistakes. I think I tread that line like any father, does…" He smiled. "I suppose I make of it just fine. It is what it is, isn't it?"

"And when the girl manifests?" It was as if Arthur was testing him.

Bennet grinned large and nodded his head. "You'd be the first person I would tell."

Somehow those words seemed familiar to Arthur, but he wasn't sure why. What he couldn't remember was that it was very similar to Angela's response to Linderman when he asked her an almost identical question about Peter.

And then Bob lead Noah out of his office, but not before Bennet and Petrelli gave each other a firm handshake and locked eyes. Arthur nodded his head and occupied himself with putting his reading glasses back on the bridge of his nose, getting back to work at hand as if he had better things to be doing. Finally, Bob and Noah left the room and left Arthur alone.

Arthur walked around Bob's desk to get back to work, catching sight of the mess of files stretched out on the desk like a Rorschach test, when his eye took notice of one particular file. It was what looked to be Bennet's file, peeking out with its ivory name tab from under a few files set on top of it. Looking closer Arthur could see that the tab did indeed read: Bennet, Noah.

Arthur didn't want to look at the file, he couldn't, he knew what was inside, but he still had to fight the urge not to give into his temptations as Angela's words ran in his head, "Don't look at her picture." Arthur had to keep his objectivity, as Angela called it. He was, after all, the one who had taught Angela that same lesson. It was not a mantra Arthur was new too. Still, Arthur Petrelli found himself slowly pressing his fingers to the file on top of Bennet's, slowly sliding it out of the way, putting Bennet's file in full view. And as Arthur lifted his fingers up and away from the file he could see the top of a small picture peeking out from the top of the manila file folder. He just couldn't help himself, and just as Angela had predicted it, Arthur Petrelli found himself pulling the small picture out, slowly revealing to him the face of his granddaughter for the first time.

He knew her instantly, almost taking his breath away – he was struck. And he thought to himself that Angela was wrong, Claire didn't have his eyes.

"She has Angela's eyes," the voice in his head said full of awe as he looked at Claire's hazel eyes, eyes he suspected looked brown in the moonlight, just like "his Angela.'

And Arthur knew what he always knew deep down, that what he was doing to protect Claire, to save her - was for all the right reasons, even if his actions were not. But looking at his granddaughter's face for the first time only solidified something deep inside of Arthur Petrelli. For looking into Claire's eyes and seeing Angela's eyes looking back at him, Arthur saw the woman he had married long ago and the child she had once been. And it was then that Arthur Petrelli vowed to himself that he would never do to Claire what he had done to Angela. He promised that Claire would never become a Petrelli. And when a Petrelli made a promise, they kept it.

* * *

**2002**

The Petrelli Home

* * *

The Waltons they were not. Nathan sat in the middle of his parent's living room, holding his infant son on his lap as he watched Peter and his father go at it once again.

"Can't you for once -- can't you just be happy for me!" Peter shouted to his father, his eyes ablaze - there was no doubt he was a Petrelli.

"You think this is about being happy?!" Arthur bellowed back. "Happiness has nothing to do with it– _nothing _whatsoever--"

"Well, I do!" Peter shouted over his father's last words, answering the previous statement.

"Sometimes you have to make the hard choices. Peter!"

The baby son Nathan was carrying in his arms started to cry.

"Heidi?" Nathan handed his son off to his wife and they shared a look. Heidi took both her sons out of the living room.

"We sent you to four years of college and this.. THIS is what you decided to do with your life? **This**."

"Can you boys just get a grip!?" Angela insisted in their direction.

"He has a point, Ma" Nathan turned to his brother. "Be a doctor Pete, why a nurse? What are you a woman?"

Peter looked at his brother with a look of huge disappointment. "What is that, what is that suppose to mean?"

'It's a joke," he grinned and stood. "You wanna help people, go to medical school. Join the Peace Corps for a couple of years. I mean come on, Pete – it's like this close to being a candy-striper ."

Angela gave her son a very unhappy look. Nathan didn't seem to get why. Nathan walked over to the doorway and leaned on the archway.

Peter wasn't too happy with Nathan either, as he rolled his head forward and shook it, taking a deep breath. He felt ganged up on.

Arthur came back into it with fighting force. "We only want what's best for you, for Christ sakes!" He put out both his arms in frustration.

"And what's that, being a lawyer like Nathan, like you – defending criminals for a living!"

Arthur's eyes got wild. "Justice is justice, kid. Everyone gets to fight fair, that's the law, that's the name of the game. That's what I fight for. Everyone gets a chance to defend themselves."

"You're a criminal for defending criminals."

"Pete-" Nathan tried to intervene, but he was talked over.

Arthur was almost in his son's face. "Hey, kid! – Don't talk of things you know nothing about. Do you understand the things I have scarified for you --what this family has sacrificed for you! You have no idea what I've done for this—!"

"Arthur!" Angela scolded, afraid her husband was about to reveal something he shouldn't.

"Done for me!?" Peter demanded shoving his hand in his father's direction. "Done for me? You – it's all about you. It's always like this."

"Peter..." Angela tried to get a word in, but Peter wouldn't let her.

"No.. No.. I wanna have my say – it's always about what you think is best for me, what Nathan thinks is best for me - can't I decide what I think is best for** me - **can't I pick my own future? I told you a long time ago, I don't want to follow in your footsteps, I wanna leave the family business - that doesn't' mean I don't love you. Why can't you trust me? Trust that I know what I'm doing. Both of you." He glanced over at Nathan for a moment.

"You do this – it's not on my dime. Be whatever the hell you want to, I'm just not paying for it."

"Stop this, both of you! " Angela looked at Arthur with a stern expression. There was a short moment of silence. Angela looked at her husband and then at Peter, waiting for one of them to make a response.

Peter looked at his father as if his words had hurt him, and they had. "Why do you always have to be so cruel?" Money wasn't what Peter Petrelli was looking for.

"It's a cruel world, kid, sometimes we learn to adapt."

Peter laughed angrily and nodded his head as if it was a sentiment only his father could reiterate. "Well, I don't believe that." His eyes were clear.

Arthur looked at his son with all concern and then his eyes went dark and cold. "Yeah, well just wait."

There was a short silence, while everyone looked at Peter.

Finally, Arthur spoke. "Go ahead, let him throw his life away –it's not like we haven't tried to stop him." He gave Angela an evil look and he turned toward his study.

"Pop." Nathan called after his father.

"I don't need your money – I can do it myself. I didn't come here for your money." Peter stormed out.

"Peter!" Angela yelled toward Peter. She turned and gave Nathan a stern look.

"Wait, what?" Nathan knew that look.

"Go after your brother. Talk to him, he listens to you."

"Ma, he wants to be a nurse." Nathan laughed it off. Nathan's oldest son, Monty, ran into the room and grabbed a hold of his father's leg as Peter use to do to Nathan at the same age. "He'll just grow out of it. Give him time." Nathan ran his hand through his son's hair. "It's a phase. He'll come around. Don't worry."

Angela Petrelli wasn't happy with that answer. She turned toward the door after her son.

"Peter!?" Angela yelled to her son as she walked out of her front door. "Peter," she called to him as she stepped away from her door and down the walkway.

Peter watched as his mother approached him. "Mom, there's no talking to him."

Angela now stood in front of her son. "I know. It's okay."

"I just feel like they both gang up on me like that."

"Nathan is just being Nathan. Your father has no excuse." She looked her son over.

"This is what you want to do?"

"I do. I wanna help people." Peter had that look of sincere sweetness, it wasn't just that he wore his heart on his sleeve, he wore his soul on his face.

Angela gave her son an off center smile. "Help people?" She ran her hand through his hair. "What am I going to do with you?" she said in her sly tones.

They smiled at each other.

"You know, you're more like your father than you'll ever understand, Peter."

"Him?" Peter looked off toward the house. "I'm nothing like him, "he retorted in his youthful tones.

"Here." Angela handed Peter a folded up set of twenties.

"What is this?"

"It's money."

"I see that." Peter wouldn't take the bills from his mother. " I don't want his money." He gestured with his head and shoulders, his hands in his pockets.

"Well, some of it is my money too. And believe me I earned it."

"I bet you did," he said jokingly and with a wye smile.

"Don't be smart," she scolded.

"It's still his money, I don't want it, " he said sincerely.

Angela set the bills in his front pocket. "You're going to need some extra cash with your money all tied up in student loans. Books. Women."

Peter smiled sheepishly." Thanks, Mom."

"You will never be a disappointment to me, Peter. Just be safe." She paused. "That's all I care about. Don't give me a reason to worry and I won't worry. That's all a mother wants."

Peter took his mother's hand and squeezed it.

"I promise." Peter leaned in and kissed his mother on the cheek. "Bye, Mom."

And Angela Petrelli watched as her son Peter walked off, down the block and disappeared into the streets of Manhattan. And she worried for her son for other reasons than Nathan or her husband did. And she wished, in that small moment, that she could tell him all her secrets. But Angela Petrelli knew she couldn't and she knew she wouldn't. And she knew that no matter what the cost, as long as she lived, Angela Petrelli would do what many mothers would consider unthinkable. Angela just didn't know what that was yet. She just knew that when the time came she would do what had to be done. For Peter, for Nathan, for the family.

She had seen an empath in the worst condition and she had seen an empath in the best condition. Angela Petrelli just didn't think her son could handle it, the truth was he could, she couldn't. And she was only keeping him from his inevitable destiny.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Carlo's son manifest. What does that mean for the Petrellis?


	19. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter 18

_(Arthur/Angela, Nathan, Linderman, Peter, Bob)_

* * *

**2003**

* * *

Many people don't just gauge the passage of time by the lines on their face, but by other things. That time in one's life when the elevator operator at Saks starts calling you Ma'am instead of Miss. When the man behind the make up counter at Henri Bendels changes his pleasantries to exclude the words, "young lady." And when it is no longer shocking that you are the mother of a twenty-three-year-old son.

Angela Petrelli measured the passage of time, not by any of those things, but by the amount of pain she had felt and the amount of pain she tried to keep herself from feeling. Angela could claim she could cut out her own heart and do what was needed to get the job done, but it just wasn't the truth. Oh, she got the job done, that was the truth, but that was as far as it went – the rest was all collateral damage.

It was another dream about fire, which by now Angela felt was nothing more than redundant. It was so hard to figure out sometimes. Was this real, was it a metaphor, or was it both? Sometimes it was both, sometimes it wasn't. And although she rarely dreamt in metaphors anymore Angela had to be ready for the times when she did. Rarely didn't mean never; just like being a pre-cog didn't mean she knew everything, even though at times she had deluded herself into thinking she did. Still, all Angela could do was filter what she saw through her own mind's eye.

Dreams like these were the worse, because they were maddening. And the heat - she could feel the heat and smell the smoke, and see the haze. She found herself running from room to room, ducking and holding her hand up to block the seething heat from her face. A heat that ran through every pore of her being as at every turn Angela found herself trapped. It wasn't hard to figure this dream out; Angela Petrelli's house was burning down around her.

Arthur Petrelli woke up one day with a greater sense of purpose than he had once felt. He woke up with a love of life that seemed to have left him years ago. He reveled in his work, his grandchildren and he seemed to appreciate his wife more. No one noticed it more than Angela, herself, as she and Arthur started to become closer than they had in years.

Fighting to protect Claire , the family, a common goal against the Company as they fought together from the inside had brought them closer together in all the respects of a married couple. Still, life was never perfect and the Petrellis never expected it would be – therefore Angela demanded nothing but perfection in every other aspect of her life.

One day Arthur found his wife sitting on the floor, still wearing her coat, looking off into nothingness. She peered up at her husband as he looked down at her on the floor; his eyes were soulful. She hadn't seen such a look in his eyes for years. He knelt down on the floor in front of her. It looked like Arthur might cry, but he didn't. Arthur took his hand and bushed a soft tear from the corner of Angela's eye, and then he laid his head on her chest, as if he was going to cry himself, but he didn't. The gesture shocked Angela and when he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly she hugged him for dear life as if she felt it could be the last time. She never asked him what had happened, or why he'd done it. And she would never know what had prompted it. Still, it was not the last of his odd behavior.

* * *

**2005**

* * *

And when Nathan toasted his parents at their fortieth wedding anniversary, he beamed with pride.

"To my parents." Nathan toasted them at a very large and expensive bash Nathan had thrown in their honor. "Two people who give me hope for the future. I love you both." And Nathan got a little emotional, but being his parent's boy, he held it in.

Arthur and Nathan hugged and patted each other on the back. Arthur gripped his son's shoulder and smiled at him, while Peter looked on from the doorway.

Angela caught Peter's eyes and she smiled. Only Peter only felt out of place and his mother knew it, but there was nothing Angela could do about it, it was just the way it was right now. To Angela, her son was ruled by nothing but insecurities, but he was young yet. Angela needed to give him a little more credit. She was too busy seeing him as her baby to notice, so much so it would take her too long to realize the boy had grown up while she wasn't looking.

Arthur stole Angela's attention from the door and Peter watched as his parent's took the dance floor.

Arthur cleared his throat for a moment. "The clock is ticking, Angela." Arthur said softly as they danced alone on the dance floor, talking so only they could hear.

"You think I don't know that? Plans must be made for this family's future. This family deserves better. "

"Agreed." He looked at her deeply. "Carlos's son has become a person of interest."

"How's that?"

"Seems he can paint the future." Arthur paused. "Our future." He raised his eyebrows.

Angela was intrigued.

"Linderman has a plan I think we'll both be interested in. Very much so. Well, it's not just his plan…" Arthur smirked. "And with some hard work it can be _our_ plan." He had a sense of seriousness in his voice mixed in with that cocky attitude of his. "And if it works… We can finally save this world and_ this_ family at the same time. " He leaned in and kissed Angela on the forehead.

She seemed more concerned than relieved. That would soon change.

All Peter and Nathan saw was their mother and father in a loving moment. And Nathan wished one day he and Heidi would end up like his parents - he had no idea.

* * *

**Petrelli, Linderman & Petrelli**

* * *

Angela stood in the cold, antiseptic surroundings of Linderman's Art archives with her husband to her right and Daniel Linderman off to her left. She and Arthur watched as Linderman pulled out wall after wall of Isaac Mendez's paintings for her to see. Angela was agog at what she saw, for she felt as if her entire life was being stretched out before her.

"Are these the images from your dreams, Angela?" Linderman asked her.

Arthur looked on silence.

"Yes," she replied, for they were one and the same. Isaac Mendez was a pre-cog for sure, he had just manifested in a way that suited his character traits: Angela dreamed, he painted.

"Good then." Arthur took a step forward, his voice was all business. "It's confirmed."

So, Angela and Arthur started to forge a plan with Linderman that would stop their sons, their family from burning. A plan that would soon be helped by more people than Daniel, Arthur and Angela – it wasn't just _their plan_.

What Angela and Arthur could never have known, at the time, was that Daniel Linderman wasn't showing them all the Mendez paintings in his collection. Certain pictures of Peter, a town in Odessa, and an unnamed cheerleader, images all locked away in some secluded, darkly lit room. Linderman didn't know who the cheerleader was yet, but he wanted to find out. And with Peter involved, he knew it should, for now, be the kind of information he should keep to himself. Angela wouldn't know he knew all this until it was all too late. Soon, Linderman would know the girl's identity, as would Bob and entire company, but that was far into the future.

"But we haven't shown her the best part." Linderman cooed.

Arthur smiled as Linderman pulled out a painting that made Angela's stomach jump.

But before any plans could be hatched, Daniel Linderman had to show Angela Petrelli one final painting – the one that showed destiny and what perhaps her entire life had been leading towards.

Daniel smiled through his beard, turned white by thirty years of madness. "You've always been right Angela…that boy of yours is destined for great things." Linderman whispered in her ear. "Great things."

Angela could only brim with pride and unmitigated, unadulterated power at the painting she saw in front of her: Her son Nathan standing, arms folded, in the oval office – the office of The President of the United States.

And Angela Petrelli got what others in the room might describe as a powerful look on her face for Angela Petrelli had faith again – Angela Petrelli believed.

Thompson was a most trusted man at the Company. He had risen to a supervisory position very quickly, the eyes and ears for the higher ups at the Company, the founders. Some might say he even helped start the Company, although he knew better – it was just that he was there from practically the beginning and he loved every minute of it. Thompson had even drafted his own son into the Company, doing the same job he had done when he started out: the bag and tag.

Thompson had been with the Company since he was in his early twenties. He was a man Linderman felt he could trust. He was a man Linderman felt, if he had an ability, would have been up to Linderman's own high standard. Thompson was a man the founders could trust with their secrets - he was cut from the same cloth.

Linderman leaned in close to Thompson as the two talked in the Petrelli's foyer. "This is why I am confiding in you, because we trust you, because we know you are one of us – or _somewhat_... like one of us."

"Come on, now?" Thompson asked in his cool serious tones. "What mother hasn't dreamt of her son becoming President?"

"I'm not talking about any mother, "Linderman smiled slyly as his eyes caught sight of Angela descending the staircase.

She looked regal and in control as she was able to command a room with very little movement and no words whatsoever. Angela almost glided toward the men with so much confidence one would think it would bust out the door and the ceiling – she was at her commanding best.

"I'd like you to meet Angela Petrelli." Linderman presented her with great flair.

"Mr. Thompson..." she said softly, taking his gaze as she approached him. She stopped in front of him and looked him dead in the eye. "Can you believe?"

The movers hurried around Linderman's gallery. The curator marched around at a quickened pace, being sure that nothing would be damaged in transit, or even before it left the building. He was a high strung man; his energy was nothing but pent up anxiety.

While, as always, Linderman was calm, cool, and collected as he watched over the proceedings with pride. Linderman took a wilted strawberry from a dish and it grew healthy in his hand. He popped it into his mouth with glee.

Angela stood behind him, walking from painting to painting, sketch to sketch and taking them in, a small chain holding her reading glasses around her neck. She paused when she reached a black and white sketch of the mysterious exploding man

A man came up to Linderman and handed him a phone.

"Yes Hello.." Linderman spoke in very cordial tones. "Ms. Deveaux**,**, thank you for calling me back. I love the Mendezes .I am _very_ interested in more of them..." He strolled over to Angela and they exchanged looks. "Yes, as many as you can – the whole lot. "

A man walked past holding a painting in brown paper. Linderman called the man over and checked the tag. "No, that one stays. All the lots in section five stay." He stressed.

Angela eyed Linderman for a moment while he wasn't looking.

Linderman went back to his phone call as the man with the painting walked away. "Yes...and I hope I'll have first..._ crack_ at anything new from the artist. Yes, yes I think he's a real talent – he has real promise...an artist for... the future." He paused and listened for a moment. "I look forward to receiving your next call." Linderman hung up the phone. A man approached and Linderman handed the phone over to the man in exchange for a small square piece of paper, it was an invitation.

Angela and Linderman together looked at the sketch of the exploding man.

"What do you think?" He handed Angela the invitation. "A reunion of sorts." He said smugly.

Angela gave Linderman an odd look and took her reading glasses from around her neck. She set them on her nose so she could read what she had been handed. After a moment, Angela set her glasses off her nose and let them drop around her neck. "You think they'll all come?" Angela handed the invitation back to Linderman.

"I do." He nodded his head slightly. "Old friends who've drifted apart will want to see each other again, despite our differences. That's all we're doing. Seeing each other again, all in one place, after all these years. Harry's already coming, Charles and Carlos of course, I think I've even gotten Victoria to show up." Linderman seemed very proud of himself.

"Victoria?" Angela raised her eyebrows and slightly gestured with her head.

A man drifted over to Linderman and showed him the clipboard in his hand.

Linderman quickly read what was on the clipboard and then handed it back to the man. "I need these to be in New York by Monday."

The man with the clipboard left Angela and Linderman's side.

"Come, yes? But will they stay?" Angela asked all knowingly.

"Why not? It's a topic none of them can refuse." He smiled slyly. "Saving the world." He grinned large at Angela and she grinned back slyly.

Angela Petrelli and Daniel Linderman both knew they each held secrets from each other, but as much as they both had their own agendas, they both needed each other. Their jockeying for top position was to begin. For control of the world, for control of Nathan and control of what was to come next. As the painting of Nathan Petrelli standing in the oval office as the next President of The United States was wrapped in brown paper and prepared for shipping.

* * *

**Next Chapter:**: The Photo, Victoria, Peter manifests and it all begins.


	20. Chapter Nineteen: The photo

Chapter 19

Linderman, Angela, Arthur, Peter, Victoria, the 12.

* * *

When Daniel Linderman met Adam Monroe he knew nothing of art. The only things Daniel Linderman knew of the world came from books – the war changed that; Adam changed that. It was Adam who had taught young Daniel to appreciate that which came before him, to look at the artists of the past as almost the pre-cogs of their time - how, together, these artists had created a road map.

Over his almost four-hundred years of life Adam Monroe had gained a great appreciation for art and history, a collector and pontificator he passed this love, knowledge and unique "perspective" onto his young protégé, until the young man became obsessed.

Adam had helped Daniel decide upon and purchase his first piece of art . And by the time Adam Monroe was incarcerated for acts against the Company, Daniel Linderman had accumulated his own modest collection, but it just wasn't enough - it never was.

Adam's protégé would spend the next thirty years looking for the entirety of Adam's collection, knowing only that it was housed in a warehouse somewhere in the world. Finding it would never be realized in Linderman's lifetime.

The more money Daniel Linderman made, the more art he acquired; paintings, artifacts - pieces from all walks of life - all with their own history and mythology . The hunt intrigued him and soon Daniel Linderman was known, not only for his dirty, mobster-like dealings, but for his massive collection of fine antiquities from around the world. For as much as he was known to the world at large as a villain, Daniel Linderman was known to the world of art as a _humanitarian_ - that still didn't mean he didn't funnel a lot of his extra crash into government-funded exploits.

But soon, thanks to Daniel Linderman, many fine pieces of art and history were saved, restored, or captured from ruin. He was also known to foster the talents of an up-and-coming artist here and there – his henchman were always on the look out for new "talents".

But it was the story of his greatest artifact that he most treasured. The story Daniel thought only he knew, but Angela knew, for Angela had seen it in her dream that night:

* * *

**Nov 3, 1977**

* * *

Daniel Linderman needed to be alone that night, that night they officially put Adam away; the night he felt they had stabbed Adam in the back. But that didn't stop Daniel from picking and pillaging what he could before the _disciples_ descended.

He found himself that night in Adam's offices in Kirby Plaza. It was their headquarters of sort, Kaito's company had an office there as did Arthur's law firm. It was dark. No one was around and small shards of light peaked in and out of spaces in the room from hallways and the moonlight.

Daniel looked around, making sure he was alone, knowing what he was doing was wrong, but that didn't stop him. It never did anymore, not since he had come home from war, not since he had become a founder, not since he had made his first kill on the home front - it was just the way it was, one learns to adapt to the hardships of life - Daniel Linderman was no different.

Daniel was a far cry away from becoming the man he would be before his death, but he was also far away from that quiet bookworm Arthur Petrelli had met in Vietnam - Daniel was still Daniel, but on his way to becoming _Mr. __Linderman._

Daniel found Adam's door and it was open. There was no reason to lock it, other things that were meant to be locked were locked. He walked in and flipped on a small standing light, bringing a little light into the room, but not much. The room had the feeling of an late night study at the local library, or maybe that was just something from Daniel's past. The boy with the broken dreams traveled alongside Adam's desk, sending his fingers along the top of it, scooping up a small bauble with one gesture and putting it in his pocket as if it was no big deal.

Next Daniel opened up the drawers, looking for a key or something. Whatever it was, not finding it made Daniel upset and angry as he cursed the heavens around him and slammed the last drawer shut with a bang. Daniel, appearing fed up, reached forward to the edge of Adam's desk and grabbed a large letter opener and walked at a quickened pace toward a large cabinet to his left.

With a single movement, Daniel opened the lock with the letter opener and pulled the cabinet doors open with both hands. There standing in front of him, on a bottom shelf was what Daniel had been looking for one of the oldest artifacts in Adam Monroe's collection: the sword of Takezo Kensei – aka Adam Monroe. Even Kaito Nakamura himself didn't know that Adam had the sword his possession, but then Kaito didn't even know that Adam Monroe had once been Takezo Kensei, that his hero was not a hero at all.

Daniel took the sword in his fist, slammed the doors closed and walked out of Adam's office in one large, forceful move. Not before sticking the letter opener deep into the desk with all his might, leaving it there like a dagger in the mahogany finish. Daniel Linderman then walked out of Adam Monroe's office and never looked back.

_The faces all around me they don't smile they just crack. _

_Waiting for our ship to come but our ships not coming back _

_We do have time like pennies in a jar _

_What are we saving for?_

_There's a smell of stale fear that's drinking from our skins. _

_The drinking never stops because the _drinks absolve _all our sins _

_We sit and throw our roots into the floor _

_What are we waiting for?_

–_**Believe **_

_by Bravery_

* * *

**The 12**

_The DeveauxRoof_

2005

* * *

The camera was set up and they all smiled. Some hadn't seen each other for years, weeks, days; it all depended on what was left of their relationships. They may have parted, they might have all moved on to new ideas or just stayed on the old ones, but at one point they had all been friends.

And so they had agreed to meet that day on the roof, and of all things take a picture for prosperity – a last memento of years gone _away_. Times some would look back on with nostalgia, "those were the good old days, "while others looked at it with silent resentment, bitterness and anger. Angela wondered if the latter was just her. Still, no matter what, a long time ago they had all been friends.

Angela hadn't seen Charles in a few years and she was shocked to see him in a wheelchair. She knew he was ill and had sent him cards when he was in the hospital, but she had no idea. She showed Charles her painted on smile, never to show him how sorry she felt for him or sad, but Charles knew better, he knew her too well.

When he was out of earshot Angela took Linderman's ear. "I know you two are at odds, but he's our friend, I don't see why you don't just heal him..."

"Oh, haven't you heard..." Linderman said as if it was old news. "He has a form of the virus. Even if I wanted to heal him, I just can't."

"Adam?"

"We've ran out of that dear..." He asserted. "And it's not like he's very _willing_ to give us more of it." It appeared to be a silent dig at Arthur. " But then again, most of us have used up that trump card haven't we?" Linderman eyed her. "If only we could find another regenerator." He shook his head.

"Yes..." Angela agreed, keeping her secret close to her heart.

Linderman looked at Charles. "It really is a pity," he said with a touch of condescension and walked away.

After drinks were served and the help was asked to leave, the group all assembled in the living room. There they found large red tarps over something that stood the length and height of one entire side of Charles's living room.

"What's this?" Charles asked.

"It's a road map.." Linderman cooed. "Carlos's son is a bit of an accomplished artist, isn't he?" He motioned his head toward Carlos, who nodded his head toward Linderman with a sly smile.

"If we're here to look at the art equivalent of your stamp collection, Daniel. I'm not in the mood." Spoke Harry, still the jokester, but with a little less glee in his voice and demeanor.

Linderman grinned slyly with a slight bob of his head as he walked toward the tarp.

"I have brought you all here for a_ reason_. We all started together for one common goal. And for one reason or another..." he looked over the faces of his old cohorts. "We broke off --_fractioned_ away from ourselves. Some literally, some mentally, but we've all veered away from our common goal. Used our abilities for our own sakes, our own_ personal_ gains — forgotten our core values — what is really and truly important --forgotten our wants and desires. Some of us have given up on the good work we are doing. Some of us have just given up." He paused. "What I am offering us–_all_ of you... is a chance to get back on track. Get back on message - our purpose. Because we've all _learned _the hard way that one man –or one woman cannot heal the world alone one person at a time. It just can't be done. And no one knows that more than we do. We need something bigger. Something to pull it down on course. The world needs hope. We all need hope. Something to bring everyone together." He paused. "What I offer you here is _finally_, after all our years of fighting this _war_... something bigger, something to **believe** in." He was stern yet full of optimism. "What I offer you is the future." And Linderman pulled off the tarp to reveal two huge walls of paintings of the events to come.

Angela didn't have to believe. She already did.

* * *

**Victoria Pratt & Angela Petrelli**

The Deavoax Roof

* * *

Victoria looked at her reflection in the atrium window. She put her hand to her cheek, her scar was gone. It was the scar left by the mark Adam had given her when he had tried to release the virus; when he had tried to save the world. Save the world by killing it.

Victoria put her hand against her face and let her fingers touch the spot, unsure if it was real. It wasn't that she wasn't use to seeing herself, or anyone, healed, it was just she had lived with that scar for a long time, and now it was no more.

Victoria was beginning to regret ever agreeing to attend the party that day. What had possessed her to come, nostalgia? A hope that everyone had changed? She had no idea. Hope was not something Victoria had inside of her for years. And if she was still looking for it, it wasn't the kind of hope Daniel Linderman was talking about.

Suddenly, Victoria saw Angela's image behind her in the window pain. "He healed me..." Victoria was in a state of disgusted shock.

"He was just trying to do something nice," Angela retorted.

Victoria shot around and faced Angela. "I never asked him to!" Her voice was cold and angry. She walked closer to Angela with her head in a diffident stance. "I liked my scars. They remind me of what I've done." She looked Angela up and down. "Do you really believe in all of that? That a bomb going off in New York City – _that's_ the way to heal the world..."

"We've tried to stop if for almost thirty years – I was having the dream even before that. It can't be stopped. Life's inevitable, it can't be stopped. You know that."

"So, you'd let it all just happen. Use it all for your own _personal gain_." She threw Linderman's words back at Angela. " Peace on the heads of millions."

"That's what **war** is." Angela was firm.

"You people still think you're in some kind of war?!" She was shocked.

"You haven't lived this life for thirty years, you don't know." Angela walked toward Victoria.

"Oh, I know..." Victoria insisted. "I think the question is, do you know anymore? Do you know anything that's real anymore? Have you become so jaded and deluded, so broken and angry at the world not listening to you – that you would **let** this happen?"

"We are not _letting_ this happen." Angela demanded. " It will happen no matter what we do. I've seen it all. For years and I'm tired of treading water, we all are. This bomb will happen. And we will be the ones to pick up the pieces. There is nothing any of us can do about it. So, why not do something about what comes next." She put her arm firmly on Victoria's arm."Believe. Can you believe?"

"You sound just like Adam!" Victoria pulled away.

"Adam wanted to kill everybody – cleanse the world--what we're talking about is _saving _everyone. We're not causing this bomb."

"Just taking advantage of it," she snarled.

"You know I'm right?"

"Still sounds like the same propaganda to me," Victoria hissed. "You're killers, all of you. Nothing about this organization has changed; it's just gotten a better shine and…_ higher_-priced business cards." Victoria was one of the only people who could go head-to-head with Angela. "And what about Nathan, all that talk years ago, about _keeping _him from this, keeping him from the fire and you're throwing him right into the hearth– what happened to your plan, Angela? What happened to saving your family from this?"

"This **is **the only way to keep Nathan from the front lines. His life will have purpose..."

"No, you mean _your_ life will have_ purpose_. Looks to me like you're not helping your son, you're just using him..."

"Nathan will lead this country – Nathan will lead the world– bring it together. And my children and their children after that won't be hunted --put in cages – other people's children will have the chance to live in a world without fear. No one will. And to do that, we have to unite everyone toward a common goal. A common – commonality."

"More fear...!"

"You have no idea the hell I have seen. The things I've witnessed. We are fixing the world, Victoria. Just like we set out to do. And if I damn my soul in the process, so be it, if my children and the world benefit I don't care what happens to me. It is the right thing to do."

"This is your plan for Nathan?"

"I told you I'd find a plan. " She walked a few steps closer to Victoria. "Nathan will do what we were never able to do, what his parents were _never_ able to do, save the world. I am keeping him from the front lines. I am keeping both my sons from the front lines. Where they will never have to deal with the life that we have lead."

"I know I can't stop you. I know I can't stop any of you. But I can't be part of this. I just want to be left alone."

"You can't hide from the Company, from our past; I've learned that the hard way, they always know where you are..."

"You mean _you _always know where I am," she scoffed. "Don't think I don't know it was you who knew where I was, so they could find me for this little _reunion_ from** hell**." She breathed in through her nose. "You owe me, Angela. All those years ago, I knew you were working with Adam. Someone had to. And you and Arthur and Linderman and Maury – you were always his most devoted of disciples. Biting at his feet like _rabid_ puppies. Maybe in the end you came to your senses and you warned Kaito, or maybe you always had your wits about you, I don't know. But you, Arthur, Linderman, one of us-- told Adam where the virus was, someone had to tell him it existed. I sure as hell didn't tell him. And believe me it's been _lovely_ catching up on old times, really, but you'll excuse me if the talk of _death_ and _destruction_ doesn't just leave my stomach a little full for dessert, but I want the hell out of this. A long time ago we were friends, Angela, we kept each other's _secrets_ and I actually, funny as it is, still treasure those moments, the few good ones that we had– but when it comes down to it, you owe me. In so many ways, Angela. You owe me." She looked at Angela hard and cold. "Pay up," she greeted. "I just want to be left alone."

Angela looked long and hard at Victoria, but said nothing. Angela nodded her head. Victoria didn't need to thank Angela, for it was written on her face how she felt. Written all over Victoria's face that the debt Angela owed her didn't deserve to be expressed in pleasantries.

Victoria started to leave, but Angela grabbed her by the forearm and brought her in close so no one else could hear, her voice was filled with truth and concern.

"You need to change your name this time. Go off somewhere. Alone. Remote. It's the only way out."

"You can get out too, Angela. Leave this madness behind you."

"Noooo." Her voice was low and breathy. "I have to stay here and protect my family. I'm too entrenched in this. Death is my only way out. And even then..." She led her eyes to the side. "Who knows, even then..."

Victoria shook her head and pulled away. "You're a killer, Angela. The whole lot of you," she said soft and hard. "You may not pull the trigger, but you're a killer just the same. "And Victoria stormed off the roof through the atrium and she was gone.

After a moment Linderman arrived on the roof, through the main doors, a drink in hand, he looked around as if he was expecting to find someone there.

"Where's Victoria?" he questioned.

Angela looked at Linderman hard and resolute. Finally a small friendly smile came to her face. "I have no idea..." she gestured up with her shoulders. "I don't know." And she left the roof and returned to the party.

_So give me something to believe _

_Cause I am living just to breathe _

_And I need something more _

_To keep on breathing for _

_So give me something to believe _

**-Believe**

by Bravery

* * *

**Angela & Arthur**

_One year later_

The Petrelli Bedroom

* * *

Arthur Petrelli stuffed a few papers into a briefcase. He noticed a large, expensively wrapped basket of cheese sitting on the bed.

"What is that? It's the size of Texas." Arthur grumbled.

"It's a basket for Peter."

"And you don't think its too…" he smirked. "Overpowering?

"No." she said firmly. "No. I don't."

"No, you wouldn't," he mumbled. Arthur made sure he had all the paperwork and files he needed. "I have to see Linderman in Atlantic City tonight; I'll be back early tomorrow."

"Tonight? It's Peter's graduation party." She turned to him as she set her earring in her ear. Peter had finally finished his degree in nursing from NYU.

"Is that tonight..." he seemed distracted as he checked his pockets to be sure he had his glasses, he did.

"I told you five times this week. He graduates this afternoon. The best we can do is go to his party. I promised him."

"He'll get over it." Arthur closed his case. He grabbed a bag from the closet and threw it on the bed.

"You're not his beck and call boy," Angela said crossly. "You use to be the one who called the shots around this place."

"It's business, Angela. It's important. I'm keeping this family afloat." He threw a few things into a bag and was gone without a word.

And Angela was left with the feeling that her husband was hiding something from her. Angela seethed with anger and with all her might, which was plenty, Angela slammed closed the drawer to her vanity at full force - so hard she cracked the wood.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_Later That Night_

* * *

"Ahhh!' Angela woke up in a fright. Her arm outstretched in the air, reaching out for her son Nathan as he fell through the air to the ground below. She had seen it all. Linderman's thugs chasing her son, Nathan flying away, the car crash and then Nathan falling to the ground. But Angela had woken up before she saw where or how Nathan had landed.

Angela had left Peter's graduation party early, perhaps Nathan was still there. Perhaps she could still stop him. But, how? How could she stop Nathan without bringing suspicion on herself. It was a trick she knew well, but sometimes she was at a loss.

She called Peter.

"No, Mom, he just left." Peter was picking up beer bottles and paper plates. "Do you wanna call him on his cell, he should be half way to Hyde Park by now."

"Noo. Noo." She said. "It can wait." Angela held in every last thought or emotion that would give her away.

"Good night. Love you." Peter said without hesitation.

"I really am proud of you today."

"Thanks, Mom."

Angela hung up the phone and sucked in her emotion. There was nothing more she could do. Calling Nathan on the road would do no good**.** Everything was already in play. All she had to do was wait. After all, Angela knew he would live, but that didn't mean she didn't worry.

Angela got dressed, put her coat on, got her purse ready, her keys – the driver wasn't on call at night, and she waited. As she waited the thoughts of the party ran in her head. It was nice to see her two boys together, it was nice to get out, Arthur never liked meeting new people anymore, but she understood – with their life it was hard to let anyone new in.

It was nice to dance again, really dance again. She had been fixing herself a drink when she heard the sounds of Elton John singing, it was a sound she hadn't heard in a while. When one of Peter's friends, one she knew, argued with another friend that the singer was not in fact Elton John, Angela had to chime in. The two men were shocked when they found out she was, in fact, right – it was the _Scissors Sisters_, but with Elton John.

"I was listening to Elton John long before either of you were born." She raised one eyebrow at them.

Angela waited in her bedroom for two hours until finally her phone rang. It sent a lump into the base of her throat. She picked up the receiver with her slender hands and listened stoically to the person on the other end of the line. Nathan and Heidi had been taken to an area hospital half way between New Hyde Park and New York City.

"I'll be right there..." She said softly. Angela put the phone back on its receiver and drove to the hospital.

Angela had no idea, that across town, her son Peter was having the same dream she had hours earlier, a delayed vision. He had manifested and like a baby chick emerging from the egg he didn't have full use of his power yet, he didn't even have his training wheels. The nightmare was about to begin.

* * *

"_I am hiding from some beast. But the beast was always here. _

_Watching without eyes because the beast is just my fear _

_--that I am just nothing -- Now its just what I've become._

_What am I waiting for?_

_It's already done _

**-Believe**

by Bravery

* * *

**Next Chapter: **The _Death_ and Funeral of Arthur Petrelli? Was it a heart attack? Suicide? Murder? Bob? Linderman? Angela? And is he even dead?

* * *

Please review it is really helpful, good or bad, to my development as a writer.


	21. Chapter Twenty: The 'Death' of a Husband

* * *

Chapter 20

(Arthur, Angela, Nathan, Peter, Linderman & Bob)

**Note:**Please review. Feedback of any kind is the only way I can grow as a writer, see what lands, and know I should keep on posting. Thank you.

* * *

**March 2006**  
_The Petrelli Home_

* * *

Angela came home to faint noises coming from the bedroom. It was Sunday night and the house was usually quiet, but not tonight. Angela made her way up the stairs and as she got closer to her bedroom door she could tell the noise she heard was the sound of two men fighting. Two men in a heated argument and they were Daniel Linderman and her husband.

* * *

**The Present**  
_The Petrelli Home_

* * *

Peter could feel his mother panicking, her heart racing, her breathing heavy and, without even knowing it, he let her free from what was going on.

Angela opened her eyes with a large breath and pulled away from her family. Her eyes were wet with tears and her face was red.

"Mom, what is it?" Peter questioned with all his concern.

"No. No." She shook her head, her voice was grainy and not like herself. "I don't. I don't want to relive that. I can't." She was scared yet demanding at the same time. "I won't. No."

"You can't!?" Nathan was irate.

"Nathan–" Peter tried to calm him.

"No. No," he waved Peter off. "This is where we are in the story, Ma!" Nathan barged toward his mother " You don't get to stop this. Not now! You don't get to decide for us anymore!"

"Some things in this world are meant to be private!" Angela snarled to Nathan.

"Leave her alone, Nathan. This is hard for her." Peter walked halfway into Nathan's path, but Nathan didn't stop.

"Private!?" Nathan was practically in her face, but Angela didn't flinch. "Private?" he greeted softly. "All of this, concerns us. It's not private anymore. This was our lives you were playing with, Ma.. These secrets... they don't belong to you anymore. They belong to us."

Angela's eyes widened as she recognized those words from her past, but she hardly let on.

"Don't push her, Nathan." Peter looked his brother straight in the eye.

Nathan looked at his mother almost disgusted. "You think I'm scared of you?! I've been burned alive and shot to death–"

"Well, I've been shot, burned alive, thrown from a building and stabbed to death, you really think you scare me."

Nathan turned his back on his mother fed up with the whole thing.

"Not in front of the girl." Angela said coldly as she caught sight of Claire, but Angela's eyes told a different story, as they were wet with tears.

Claire didn't know what to say. She just looked at Angela unsure and protective of herself. Peter and Nathan looked at Claire.

"What does this have to do with me?" Claire questioned, almost demanding.

"She deserves to know too," Nathan said, looking at Claire, before looking back at his mother again. "She's part of this, too."

There was a short pause, which finally Angela broke.

"I think we all deserve a drink first." Angela made her way over to a small bar set up in the corner of the room.

"What?" Nathan turned toward her.

"Well, not you and not her." Angela took two glasses and placed them in front of her. She looked at Peter who gave her a non-verbal no. "I guess its just me then." Angela said with a bob of her head and a glint in her eye.

"I can have a drink if I want to." Nathan sounded as if he was defending his manhood.

"No, you can't -" Angela said matter-of-factly, not even looking at him. "Because you're an alcoholic, that's why." She slowly poured herself a glass of scotch.

"What is she talking about?" Peter looked at Nathan.

Nathan shook his hand in Peter's direction, waving him off, as if telling him it was no big deal. "In between the hospital and a week before we found you – I was upset, I started drinking – it was no big deal - "He started to get angry again. "That doesn't make me an alcoholic!"

"But you are Nathan." Angela looked at him hard and cold. "Just like my father." She took a pitcher of water and slowly poured water into the second glass as everyone watched her. "You never met your grandfather." She looked off for a moment.

"You've never talked about him" Peter was a little in awe, it was a subject he had never gotten his mother to talk about when he was young.

"He died when I was sixteen. He used to disappear every night and end up at the local bar. "She paused as if remembering it all. "By the time I was ten, everyone there knew him by name." She looked at her sons. "And then one night he was so drunk the bartender took his car keys away from him, the safe choice of course - but safe choices don't always keep you safe, do they? He was alone, no one to drive him home, he decided to walk."

Angela again seemed to be remembering the moment as if it was happening in front of her.

"And I watched as my father stumbled into oncoming traffic and was mown down by a street cleaner. I was twenty miles away." Angela took a drink from her scotch glass and set it down, looking at it for a moment, before looking up. It was clear Angela was holding in her emotions. "I woke up moments before the police officer came to tell my mother, it was two hours later - it was the first time I manifested."

"Like when I did..." Peter trailed off looking at his mother.

Angela looked at Peter. "Yes. Just like you, Peter." Angela turned her glance toward Nathan and lifted the water glass in front of her in Nathan's direction.. "So, what's your choice, Nathan," she waited.

Nathan walked toward his mother and took the glass of water. He just looked at her in silence before she walked away from him and the bar, leaving the scotch glass on the bar.

"Fine" Angela's head bobbed for a moment with the strain of her emotions, at the strain of holding it all in. Holding it in for too long. She looked at Peter and nodded her head.

Peter nodded his head back to her and Angela took a step forward to join her family.

Claire was standing in front of Angela and the two women locked eyes. Two sides of the same coin. They glared at each other, two protective women trying to be strong. They all took hands, closed their eyes and began again.

* * *

**March 2006**

* * *

It was raining outside, Angela now remembered and she could hear the sound of the rain hitting the side of the townhouse.

Angela opened her eyes and found herself in that same hallway again. Hearing the same voices coming from her bedroom, that of Linderman and her husband fighting. She was able to step out of herself and back to a watching position and her past began again for all to see.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out," she heard Daniel snarl as she opened the door. "Where is she, Arthur? Where's the girl!"

"What is going on here?!" Angela demanded at the two men as she shut the door.

"I was bound to find out somehow, Arthur. That you had a granddaughter!"

Angela's stomach jumped, but her face didn't show it..

"Calm down!" Angela urged, but it just sounded like white noise to Arthur and Linderman as the two men talked over each other. "What is going on here!?"

"Did you really think you could keep this from me, from us!" Linderman scoffed at Arthur.

"I was protecting my family." Arthur demanded.

"From me?" Linderman questioned.

"From us." Arthur's face was stern, almost serene.

Daniel's face tightened. "You're weak!."

"Just, stop it!" Angela shouted.

"Did she know?" Linderman took out his gun and pointed it at Angela.

"She had no idea. It was all me." Arthur said stoically.

All Angela did was blink as her mouth stood open at the bombardment of thoughts hitting her. But Angela Petrelli knew the role she had to play, the role she had been asked to play.

"I find that hard to believe..." Daniel cooed.

Angela walked forward calmly. "I don't know what you're talking about, Daniel. We have two grandsons. Nathan has two boys. Put the gun away, Daniel." She stopped a few steps before him..

Daniel pointed the gun toward Arthur again, only this time he saw another gun looking back at him. "Well, isn't this interesting?" Linderman smiled. His face got serious. "Don't make us do this, Arthur. Tell me where the girl is."

The two men, once war buddies, then friends, then colleagues, now enemies, faced off against each other. All Angela could do was what she did best, watch.

"Tell me where she is, Arthur? " Daniel arched his eyebrow. "Or do I have to make Maury do it for you."

There was a small moment of silence, but to Angela it felt like hours.

Finally Arthur spoke. "No, you're right..." Arthur lowered his gun.

Angela was in shock. Daniel smiled and lowered his gun. Everyone seemed to take a silent sigh of release, except Arthur.

He looked Daniel in the face with a soberness Angela hadn't seen in a long time. "I thought that would be the route you were going for." Arthur looked at Angela. "I'm sorry," he said with the emotion in his eyes of a regretful man. It wasn't just an apology for what had come to pass, it was an apology for what was to come.

And Arthur Petrelli took his Company-issue gun to his head and pulled the trigger - _one shot through the head._

"Nooo!" Angela reached out, but it was all too late.

Daniel couldn't believe Arthur had done it as Arthur's body fell lifeless to the ground; while Angela stood still and silent in a state of shock.

"No. No..." Daniel said softly to himself. "No, No no! No!" Daniel's words got louder and louder. "Damn him!" Daniel wasn't happy one bit, but what was done was done. He walked away from the body and took a breath before walking back to Angela. "You didn't know about any of this?"

"Nooo." She said softly, her body imperceptibly shaking, she was unable to move. She was holding too much in. She couldn't even look at Daniel.

"You didn't know your son had an illegitimate child," he positioned himself right next to her ear.

"Sometimes men confess certain things to their fathers," she gulped, her face was wet and full of horror.

"I believe you, Angela. I believe you." Linderman put his gun away. He talked to her from her left, but looked at her with one eye. "It's for the best. This is a very important time in our lives, Angela. He was weak. He would have brought us down, you understand that? He never understood the _gifts_ that god gave him."

"I understand."

"Good girl. You'll know how to take care of this, won't you," he told her, he didn't ask. He knew what she was capable of.

Angela nodded her head and Daniel Linderman left the room. She waited as Daniel walked down her stairs, out the door closing it with a crack. It was when she heard the door slam that Angela Petrelli dropped to her knees letting out the most blood-curdling scream one could ever hear until she had no more air left to breath.

* * *

**Angela & Nathan Petrelli**  
_The Petrelli Home  
Early the next Morning._

* * *

Angela Petrelli sat with her back up against the wall of the hallway outside her closed bedroom. Her legs were almost against her chest and she looked off into nothingness, her eyes red, her face swollen from tears and a twisted piece of tissue between her fingers. She'd lost her shoes somewhere, she couldn't remember where.

"Ma!" she heard Nathan's voice as he barreled up the stairs in one of his designer suits.

"Up here," she tried to yell, but her voice was too hoarse and drained to be heard. She slowly tried to pull herself off the ground.

"Ma!" He caught sight of her as he reached the top of the stairs. Nathan ran to his mother as she stood.. "What happened?" Nathan demanded, but when he saw her face he knew.

It was the same face he would see months later when he opened his eyes in his hospital room, his body burnt and bleeding. And at the time it was a face that scared him, because he knew that face. Because he knew that face from this moment. The day his father died. The fear and pain all over her face. He had seen his mother cry, she could be very emotional, but it was rare that he saw her so disheveled and not in control of her full on emotions_._

Nathan's entire body felt like it would sink and his eyes showed it, but he held in his urge to collapse as much as he could, for his mother's sake.

"He killed himself..." she said in a soft rasp.

Nathan took in a deep breath to again keep in his emotions. He was like his father that way; he was like his mother that way. Nathan reached for the door handle.

"No, Nathan, no."

Angela put out her arm to try and stop him, but there was no way of doing so as Nathan walked into his parent**s'** bedroom to find his father's body, his hero, lifeless and bloody on the floor.

"No, Nathan." Angela lowered her head.

Nathan walked out into the hallway shocked, knowing it was an image he would never be able to get out of his head.

"How could he do this?" Angela declared. "How could he leave this family, when it needs him so much. Damn him, Nathan --damn him to hell!" She was almost manic, wanting someone to blame.

"Ma, stop it." He looked at her. "What happened? Just calm down and tell me what happened. What?! He just woke up and decided to kill himself!? Ma, it doesn't make any sense! I mean.. I mean..." He looked at his mother, holding her from the shoulders, he just couldn't believe what was going on.

"This isn't the first time, it's happened before..."

"What?" he greeted the words between his teeth softly. He wasn't expecting that answer.

"His two heart attacks." She sucked in her tears and was able to speak somewhat normally. She had her wits about her. "Before. We lied. They were failed suicide attempts. Both times."

"Suicide attempts?" His mind was reeling.

"You know why he left the army?"

"Yeah... but that was trauma... from the war that was it. It happens, I know."

"Delusions of grandeur they told me." She was getting calmer as she wove her stories from half truths, stringing them together from a lifetime of experience. "It's something he's been fighting for years, we didn't want to worry you and Peter. His reputation..." She nodded her head. "We especially didn't want you to know. You look up to him so much." She sucked in more tears. "No one can know Nathan. His reputation – his--"

"It's okay, it's okay..." he took his mother in his arms and held his hand on her head. "I'll take care of it. It's okay..." Nathan's head felt like sandpaper and his stomach felt like mush. "I can call in a few favors--friends from the DA's office – they'll help me. Don't worry. I'll take care of it I'll fix this." And Nathan Petrelli tried not to cry.

* * *

**The Funeral of Arthur Petrelli**  
_New York_

* * *

"O God, by Your mercy rest is given to the souls of the faithful, be please to bless this grave." The priest spoke. " Appoint Your holy angels to guard it and set free from all the chains of sin and the soul of him whose body is buried here, so that with all Thy saints he may rejoice in Thee forever. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.No one from the group came to the funeral.

Angela sat, stoic, almost motionless, her eyes moist, but nothing else. In public wasn't the place for crying. Besides, she had already done enough crying. And she had learned long ago that crying changes nothing - Arthur was still dead.

Peter sat to Angela's right and Nathan sat to her left. Peter held her hand. Nathan spoke, but halfway through almost broke down - he had to sit down.

Nathan sat through the burial and the church service holding inside of him the secret of his father's death, living with it in silence. At least half of it. And Nathan lived with the fear that maybe, somehow, his father had discovered that his two sons were about to testify against him in court and perhaps he was to blame for his father's death. It was something he just couldn't shake. But Nathan told no one his secret, not even Peter. Peter and Nathan shared one secret while Nathan and Angela shared another. Angela shared secrets with no one anymore.

The American flag draped over the coffin was folded into a triangle and handed to Angela. She took it in her gloved hands and sat it on her lap. Peter looked at his mother thinking this would be the moment she might lose it, but she didn't. He looked into her red eyes and smiled sheepishly. Angela breathed in through her nose and tried to smile back.

One-by-one, the Petrellis walked in front of the casket.

Nathan kissed his hands and set them on the edge of the coffin with tears in his eyes.. "Goodbye, Pop."

Nathan took his son**s'** hands, letting each of them touch the casket with their tiny fingers before walking away. Heidi was still in the hospital.

Peter held his hand on the coffin for a silent moment before Nathan came over and set his hand on the his brother's neck, rubbing it before taking him away as tears started to run over their eyelids.

Angela was the last to walk past. She set her two hands on either side of the coffin and just stared at it - she didn't move.

Peter turned back and saw his mother, standing alone and he walked back to her. "Come on, Mom." He put his arm around her.

Angela leaned in and kissed the casket. She lifted up and set her fingers along the wood, as if she was admiring it. "I really did love him." She said to no one in particular.

"I know." Peter nodded his head and tried to get her eyes. "Come on. Let's go back to the house."'

Angela nodded her head through the tears she held tucked in and she let her youngest son walk her to the car.

* * *

**The Wake of Arthur Petrelli  
**The Petrelli Home  
Manhattan

* * *

Nathan had to leave his father's wake after about two hours, it was too suffocating. As soon as he saw a clear space for the door, Nathan walked out of his parents' house, now his mother's house, to get some air.

Angela needed a break herself, but instead of venturing outside, she sat in what used to be Peter's room in a chair by the window. Angela lifted the curtain on the gloomy day, looking out as she saw Nathan approaching the front stoop. A long black car pulled up and lowered the window.

Nathan was surprised to see Linderman sitting in the car.

"Nathan..." Linderman called Nathan over.

"Mr. Linderman." Nathan walked to the car, but stayed back a few paces. "I didn't see you at the funeral."

"I've been called back to Las Vegas on business, I can't stay – I feel awful. I wanted to give my deepest condolences to your family. I've known your father for too long. It's a real shame."

"Thank you." Nathan nodded his head.

"How's that wife of yours?"

Nathan gritted his teeth, trying not to show how he blamed that man for so much pain in his life. "She's doing better, thank you." And he flashed that future politician smile.

"Good." He smiled.

"If you ever need anything, you just..." he smiled a small smile. "You just let me know."

"I'll remember that."

Linderman nodded his head.

"If you'll excuse me...ah. I should get going.." Nathan seemed distracted for many reasons. "Thank you for coming." Nathan turned away and went back into the house.

"You're not even gonna go inside and pay your respects," said a voice from inside the car.

"Are you crazy." Linderman's voice was low and gruff. "There's an empath in there. I'm not just giving my gift to just anyone. At least no one in that family." Linderman motioned toward the front seat. "Kevin," he said to his driver. "The airport. I want to get out of this god-forsaken town. The cold is depressing me." And he closed his window and the car drove off.

* * *

**Peter & Angela**

* * *

Peter found his mother in his old bedroom. She was just staring out the window as if looking at nothing, which wasn't true. As always, Peter was concerned for his mother, for he loved her, because she loved him back and to Peter that was enough.

"There you are?" Peter said sweetly. "I thought you went invisible on me?" He walked into the room, but Angela's eyes were still fixated out the window.

"No, I'm here.." She let go of the curtain and leaned back in the chair. "It was suffocating down there, I needed a break."

"Take all the time you need." He assured her as he walked closer.

"I think I will," she said with a cocky assurance as she caught his eye.

Peter smiled. He liked that his mother was taking a stand for herself.

"I see you didn't take any time changing my room over," he said with a joking glint in his eye, rolling his eyes at the room.

"We cannot dwell in the past, now can we?" She smiled a melancholy smile as Peter sat down on the ottoman in front of her chair. They took hands.

"You know you don't have to go back down there—"

"Noooo" She shook her head yes. "I do." She looked at him with that special look she seemed to reserve for Peter.

"It's okay, you don't have to–"

"Is this your sixty**-**thousand-dollar nursing degree talking, or my son?"

"These people don't deserve a piece of you–"

"It's my job now.." She took a deep breath and rolled her head. "I am the widow, I need to play my part, make everyone else feel better," she said sarcastically. "I just need a little time out – a little break." She took her hand and ran it through her son's hair. "You need a haircut."

"Mom." He moved his head away so she would stop treating him like he was ten.

"Fine," she put her hands up. "I won't mention it again."

Peter just looked at his mother with a loving glint in his eye.

"What?" she shook her head pretending she didn't understand. "Is there something on my face?"

"I'm just checking in with you?"

"I'm fine, really," she stressed, but Peter knew different. "He loved you, you know that?" Angela leaned in and spoke with all direct seriousness.

"Mom–" he tried to stop her from speaking, he didn't want to go there.

"He did." She nodded her head and shook his hand as she squeezed it. "So, much so."

"I know he loved me, he just... I don't know— he had a lousy way of showing it sometimes."

"It was just who he was."

"And I don't wanna talk about that, now –okay? Not here– it isn't right–"

"He was a man of a different generation, Peter. But his family –That was most important to him. What he did, he did for us, for you – for you and Nathan – don't forget that."

"And what did he do for you?"

"For me?" She smiled and held the end of her son's chin. "He did a lot for me, I assure you. He did enough." She got a melancholy look in her eye as she lifted her fingers off her son's chin. "He did what he could. I never really appreciated him for that, but I guess that's just another regret I can throw on the fire."

"You know I look back at my life growing up and I know we joked and we laughed, but I always got the feeling – somewhere deep inside of you – you were always... unhappy."

Angela didn't answer this time, she just looked at her son dead on, and loved him for who he was.

"You should get away." Peter squeezed her hand.

"Get away?" she laughed and leaned back in her chair, letting go of his hand.

"Go away – travel — see the world. Get away from New York for awhile."

"I've seen the world. It's overrated." Angela took her eyes from his gaze and looked out the window again.

Peter felt he should leave his mother alone. He stood. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."

Angela reached out and took his hand as if it was for dear life. "Okay." She said softly and nodding her head. Angela turned toward the window again.

Peter walked to the doorway and paused, looking back at his mother's reflection in the window. The sun was starting to set making the gloomy March day even darker.

"There's hope out there, Mom."

Angela's face was stoic. "Sometimes Peter, I worry about you."

"I worry about you too." Peter meant it in an entirely different way than Angela did.

Angela's demeanor was nothing but a cold front. "I wish you'd see the world for what it is Peter. I fear maybe I failed you in that way." She still wouldn't look at him, looking at only his reflection in the window. It was as if she was off somewhere.

"You started to sound like Pop." He pushed his hair out of the way of his face.

"Maybe I've started to see that there's very little time left."

"Don't talk like that —" He didn't like his mother talking about death at his father's funeral, but Angela was talking about something else all together.

Angela turned to face Peter. "If you don't shape up Peter, this world will eat you up, just like it did your father. The world eats hope for breakfast, Peter. It's all nice to have a good heart, I wouldn't want you any other way, but you let them get you, then what was the point in having it in the first place, if you waste it all away."

"Way to be blunt, Mom." He wasn't sure what to make of her.

"I'm blunt because it saves time." Angela echoed Kaito's past words to her. "The clock is ticking." Angela was of course referring to the bomb, the future, she just had no idea she was talking to it. She looked at Peter with all her spirit. "I don't want it to be too late for you."

"I can take care of myself, Mom." Peter understood she was upset. "Don't worry about me, I'm fine."

Angela took a breath and looked away from Peter, she leaned back in her chair.

"Maybe on Tuesday you can come over and help your brother and I clean out your father's things." Angela looked toward her ring finger and played with her fingernails.

"I can't on Tuesday I start work on a job – it's my first day – I already interviewed, I just need to get a tour of the place, learn my way around– oh, that reminds me I forgot to mention– he said he knew you...Charles Deveaux, that name ring a bell– said he knew you. I never heard the name--"

"Yes, I knew Charles." She threw it off. Angela's eyes smiled for a moment and then they got soft and sad. "He's sick?" She still wasn't looking at Peter. She looked as if she was coming up with ideas. "I mean I knew he was, but I didn't know—"

Peter walked back into the room.

Angela could hear his silence resonate. "You can tell me, I'm not made of glass right now."

"You never were."

"He's dying?"

"Yes."

"I see." She looked down for a moment.

"I'm sorry. Were you good friends?"

"A long, long time ago," she said soft and low. "Peter?" she asked after a moment. "Why don't I stop by with you on Tuesday?" She asked distantly. "If you don't mind--

"I think he'd like that." Peter smiled and started to leave again, "In a few months, you'll feel better. It will all be different. I promise you."

"In a couple of months, everything will be different Peter, this I have faith in."

Downstairs Nathan was agitated, he felt hot and claustrophobic and he hadn't checked in on Heidi yet for the day. He wasn't even sure where his kids were**.**

The house felt packed. Nathan wondered if everyone in New York City was there. In the foyer, the living room, even in the kitchen. Arthur Petrelli had been a very well-respected lawyer in New York City, which meant that many people came to pay their respects, or network, and angle for that next prime job. Everyone wanting to get a piece; while there was still something left to get a piece of.

With all Nathan was going through in his life, with his father, with Heidi, playing host or thanking people who barely knew his father wasn't number one on his list at the moment, but it was what was done. In fact, he was so distraught and harried Nathan forgot to notice that not one close friend of Arthur's or his mother**'s**seemed to show up at the funeral. Angela and Arthur Petrelli had hardly any close friends left from their normal life. None, really at all. It's just what happens when a certain life is lead.

Nathan caught sight of Peter coming down the stairs from seeing their mother.

"Hey!" Nathan called to Peter through the noise.

Just then Nathan found himself approached, almost accosted by yet another mourner, it was a one Bob Bishop.

"Mr. Petrelli, I am sorry for the loss of your father, he was a great man, a special man." Bob put out his hand and Nathan shook it.

"Thank you, it means a lot to my family that you could make it." Nathan gave his standard phrase for the day, he tried to get Peter's attention with his eyes, but he was still stuck with Bob. Nathan looked Bob over. "I'm sorry, I feel like maybe we've met before–But with the day, I can't quite--"

"Bob, Bob Bishop."

Nathan was distracted, and he looked back at Bob again, "I'm sorry Bob--?"

"Bishop. Bob Bishop. I'm an old friend of your parents."

Nathan nodded his head back toward Peter to signal him to come over to the side.

Nathan gave a final look at Bob. "I'm sorry, if you'll excuse me. I have to – you understand. Thank you, really for coming. Thank you." Peter was almost to Nathan and behind Bob.

"Pete!" Nathan motioned with his finger toward himself walking toward the doorway to take his brother over to a small area in the foyer. "Listen I'm swamped out there, where did you go?"

"I went to check on Mom."

"We have our whole life to check on Ma, I need you down here. Simon and Monty are just runnin' around crazy, I don't know where. The partners from Pop's firm just showed up. I have to call Heidi at the hospital. I need someone to play defense here." He gripped his brother**'s** shoulder. "Okay?"

"Okay. Yeah. Whatever you need." Peter nodded his head understandingly. "I'm here for you, you know that."

"Good." Nathan seemed spent and upset which came out as frustrated arrogance. "Like I'm not doing enough around here." His eyes darted around as he tried to stay focused.

"Nathan, you have every right—"

Nathan took Peter's eyes. "No, no I don't have time for this, right now. I love you, but this–" he pointed to Peter. "I don't want to talk about my feelings at this place and time, alright? Not now."

Nathan turned to the kitchen as his two sons ran around his feet almost tripping him. "Peter!"

"I'm on it." Peter turned to fetch his nephews when he caught sight of his mother watching them from the middle step on the staircase.

Peter and Angela caught eyes and he smiled at her and she tried to smile back - she was a vision in black. Peter gave one last sheepish grin and went after Nathan's boys.

That was when Angela caught sight of Bob.

Bob looked up at Angela with that look of understanding he was famous for. A look Angela saw as nothing more than condescending, yet she suspected only those who knew him could see it. It felt like nothing but feigned sorrow to her. This was not a man who was present to pay his "respects".

Bob nodded his head and approached Angela, who walked down one step as Bob stepped up to the one below her.

Bob nodded his head. "I'm so sorry, Angela."

Angela nodded her head back to him politely, yet cold..

Bob took a step up the staircase, closer to Angela, and whispered in her ear. "Plans must be made for the line of succession within the Company."

Angela's demeanor changed from strength to held in anger. She glared at him and spoke in cold, passionate tones. "This is my husband's funeral. The body isn't even cold yet. Show some respect." She gritted the word respect between her teeth so thick she almost spit on him.

And Angela Petrelli left the staircase to greet her guests.

That night Angela Petrelli put a set of wind chimes in her window. They could be seen from the street. For the clock was ticking. Claire had manifested, the bomb was coming and Angela Petrelli would haveto save the world and save her family all at the same time. It was something she felt she was very capable of. And now she would do it alone.

* * *

**Next Chapter:**Why the company was looking for Maury? Why did Angela steal those socks? And with Arthur gone who, if anyone, will Angela confide in?


	22. Chapter Twenty One

* * *

Chapter 21

Nathan, Peter, Angela, Simone & Charles Cameos

* * *

**Three Months Later**

(May 2006)

* * *

"Ma!?" Nathan shouted to his mother as he took large strides up the stairs.

"I'm in here," Angela called from her bedroom. She was sitting at her desk by the door writing a letter; her reading glasses were set on her nose as she pressed her fountain pen into the parchment in front of her.

Nathan approached and leaned on the door frame; he was dressed for work.

Angela looked up from under her glasses and noticed Nathan was holding a large folder filled with papers. She pulled off her reading glasses and glared at the papers in Nathan's hand. "Is that for me?"

"The last one, I promise."

Angela let out a huge sigh and put her hand out toward Nathan.

Nathan walked to his mother's side and handed her the folder. He then walked past his mother's desk while he waited for her to sign what he had given her.

"I swear..." Angela set through the papers, reading and signing. "If I'd known there was so much paperwork after you die, I would have gone first."

"Ma?!"

"I was kidding." She took off her reading glasses and handed the papers behind her to Nathan. She then put the cap back on her pen.

"Thanks. I can't stay I have to get back to the office." Nathan walked toward the door.

"Nathan?" Angela turned in her chair and looked at him.

"Yes, Ma," he stressed and raised his eyebrows. He knew it would never be a quick in and out.

"Have you decided yet?"

Nathan got that Petrelli grin on his face. "I'm...yeah.. I'm thinking about it." He seemed pretty proud of something.

"Just thinking about it?" She took off her reading glasses and tossed them on her desk.

"Well, I... I'm probably gonna do it. I mean Heidi's still in rehab and—"

Angela gestured with her head. "She thinks it's a good idea?"

"She says she'll support what I decide to do. Whatever choice I make."

Angela stood and walked to her son. "What do _you _want to do?"

"I wanna do it, Ma?" He looked at her with serious, but conflicted eyes.

"Your father would be proud of you. He would have wanted you to do this."

Nathan nodded his head. "I know, Ma. I know."

"Do this for your father, Nathan. Do it for yourself. This is what you were born to achieve, Nathan. "She brimmed with pride and bravado. "We all have our roles to play, this is yours. You can make a difference. I know it. And you know it. You've already made up your mind... just say it out loud."

Nathan smiled at his mother, almost beaming. "I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna run for congress."

Angela leaned in and kissed Nathan on the forehead. "And you're gonna win." She lifted her eyebrows up at him and shook her finger in his direction.

And when Nathan left her room, Angela walked over to her desk. She took out the letter she had finished just as Nathan had arrived. It had four small phrases listed after each other in a column.

_Congress_

_Vice President_

_President_

_Within Five Years_

And Angela Petrelli put the letter in an envelope. The address on the front read: Daniel Linderman – Las Vegas, Nevada

It was the first dream she had written down in had written down in thirty

* * *

**Two Months Later**

Bob and Linderman

**Primatech Research**

Hartsdale, NY

* * *

The alarm sounded and Linderman met Bob in the hallway. "What's going on?"

They walked down the hall together as people exited the building making their way past them like ants escaping a hive.

Linderman was worried there was a jailbreak going on.

"Someone's been stealing gold from the vault..." Bob said with disgust in his voice.

"What? How can that be?"

"I felt something was wrong, I couldn't figure out what, so I installed a weight system; when it gets below a certain weight an indicator lets me know."

Bob and Linderman each pushed open a set of doors with a hard shove to enter another hallway.

"Maury..." Linderman gritted his teeth.

Bob nodded his head yes.

"What's going on!?" Angela demanded, appearing on the scene.

Linderman turned to Bob. "Get the Haitian, he's around here somewhere."

Bob nodded his head yes and exited back through the doors he came from.

Linderman wasn't very happy. "Seems, Maury's been stealing some cookies from the cookie jar." Linderman took his gun out of his holster that he wore under his jacket.

Angela looked at the gun. "Like that's going to help," she scoffed looking around, waiting for anything to pounce on her.

"The Haitian is on his way." He paused and looked around. He caught eyes with Angela and they both got an odd feeling, as if Maury was around. "Maybe we can reason with him." He put his gun away. "Maury?" Linderman yelled out.

"Maury?!" Angela shouted trying to sound sincere.

Linderman looked around suspiciously as he and Angela made their way down the hallway. "We know you're here. Just come out and talk to us. We can talk this one out."

Angela thought back to how Arthur use to deal with Maury. Maury trusted Arthur most of all. It had been Arthur who encouraged Maury to return to his family and his son.

"Boys need a father." Angela once overheard Arthur tell Maury in the privacy of his study and Maury did what Arthur advised him.

But once his son Matthew was thirteen-years-old Maury left for good. Arthur was disappointed, but understood the choice if Maury felt it was "the right thing to do."

Linderman and Angela walked with great conviction and power through a set of double doors that led into another hallway. They looked around, but no Maury.

Suddenly, the Haitian appeared around a corner behind them. It was then that they saw Maury appear at the far end of the hallway in front of them - he had been using his power to disguise his presence.

"Maury..." Linderman spoke with all of his sarcastic sweetness.

Angela's eyes narrowed.

Maury saw the Haitian right away and he looked frightened out of his mind.

"Get him." Linderman barked.

Maury ran out of sight and down another hallway.

Linderman pulled his gun and motioned for the Haitian to follow. He looked at Angela. "Tell Bob we've got him."

Angela nodded her head and turned behind her and through the double doors again, toward Bob's office. She hadn't gone that far, turning around another corner, when she felt a man's grip on her throat and she was shoved hard up against the wall.

Angela looked to see Maury Parkman wild-eyed in front of her, dressed in one of his flashy Italian suits, his hands firmly clenched at her throat. Soon he would no longer wear such suits, when his paranoia took over and he held himself up in his apartment in Philadelphia.

"Well, if it isn't Lady Macbeth, " Maury snarled at her.

Angela did as much as she could not to show her fear; she was almost there, but not quite, her eyes gave her away. It was like in one moment she became that girl again thirty years ago.

"Maybe the Haitian is doing me a favor, " he smirked. "I miss this – there's just something about seeing the whites of someone's eyes before you kill them." He pushed his grip around her throat.

Angela let out a gurgle and her body tightened, it was difficult to breath.

"Did you see the whites of Arthur's eyes when you killed him?" He leaned in. "I don't have to try and read you mind for that – I know you did it – only you could do that to him – you were killing him for years – finally you finished the job."

"He was slowly killing himself..." Her voice was barley audible.

"What?" He pushed into her neck harder.

It was hard for Angela to speak.

"He was my friend, Arthur. He was the only one in that damn group whoever gave me any respect, you and Linderman and Charles, everyone -- always looking your nose down on me – Just because you all learned to block your thoughts from me didn't mean I didn't catch on. You all acted like I was subject to your power. Like I was some cockroach –lower than all of you."

He started to chuckle.

"Which is funny, right?" His eyes seemed to have darkness behind them. "'Cause I'm the most powerful one out of all of you," he smirked. "I can make you allllll do whatever I want. Anything I want. All I wanted was — all I _deserved_ was your respect. But you always thought you were too good for me. So, young, so beautiful, so rich. I could have had you, I had so many opportunities, but out of respect to Arthur, I never did. But who wants you now?"

"You could never have me," she spit out like a snake.

"Please, you had no respect for that man, me, Kaito, Adam - what's the difference - we all know the stories. "Maury leaned in closer. "You have no idea what you did to that man, how you devastated him."

Angela wanted to defend herself, rail about how it was nothing Arthur hadn't done to her, the true story of Adam and Kaito, but she knew she should keep her mouth shut. There was a dread in her eyes as Maury's face was so close to hers Angela could feel his breath on her skin.

Maury continued on. "You always wondered how he found out about you and Kaito? You wanna know? I told him, I showed him in fact. Kaito had too much of a fervent imagination for it not to be real. I was in the back room, you didn't even know it. He slipped and I caught it. I can' t tell you I didn't take a little amount of glee in showing it to Arthur, in bringing you down from that self-inflicted pedestal of yours," he gritted his teeth. "I want you to feel the pain you made him feel...ahh... " Maury smiled. "Finally, the Haitian seems to be far enough away..."

Maury nodded his head and he got that evil grin on his face. Then suddenly Maury's entire demeanor changed and he appeared to have an honest look of shock on his face. Maury Parkman looked like a human being again, not a man high on his own power.

"Oh, my god, you..you...you didn't kill him?" And Maury saw the truth as Angela flashed in her head what had happened to Arthur.

"Maury!" Linderman yelled from the other side of the hallway.

"I guess I don't have to show you your nightmare," he said with a bit of disgust. "You're already living it."

"Come on, Maury – let's just talk." Linderman charged him at a fast walk, showing his power and strength.

"Talk?" Maury said from his gut. "Yeah, right?" And Maury slowly started to disappear from view as he created the allusion that he wasn't there.

"Maury!" Linderman started running, but Maury was gone.

The Haitian finally appeared around the hallway corner behind Linderman.

"Find him."Linderman snarled to the Haitian while he motioned his head toward the hallway in front of him.

The Haitian nodded his head and followed where Linderman had gestured.

"And I want him alive!" Linderman bellowed. "Are you alright, Angela?" Linderman asked her.

Angela nodded her head and was able to regain herself again. She took a few steps toward Linderman as he put his gun back into his holster.

They both looked down the hallway where the Haitian had exited.

"I can't believe Maury became one of _them,_" Linderman almost spit. "Pity, really," he sighed. "He could have done so much for the cause."

"Yes." Angela didn't really think it was a pity, but she concurred.

Linderman looked at Angela. "Don't worry, we'll find him. Bring him back. We found an extraordinary family in California - they have a daughter who is just what we're looking for. She finds people." He looked back toward where Maury had exited. "Parkman won't be messing with our plans. And if he doesn't want to come _back _into the fold--"

"We can just kill him," Angela spoke pointedly.

Linderman smirked. "It really is a pity. All that power and he doesn't know how to wield it for the greater good. Never did."

A few months later the parents of that extraordinary family, the Walkers, would be dead and Molly Walker would become the newest child taken in by the Company.

* * *

**September 2006**

(Six weeks to Election)

* * *

Angela could hear Daniel's words in her head as she walked down the Bloomingdales' aisles and past the forrest of clothing racks.

"Now that Arthur is gone...the word will get out that no one is protecting you, Angela. He was a powerful man. He had powerful enemies...villains. We must all protect each other now – you and I."

And he was right, Angela was more vulnerable now than even she could understand. She had Arthur around for so long to protect her, over thirty years, Angela had almost felt invincible, they both had; Angela had gotten cocky.

But now it was up to Angela alone, running around putting out all the fires that lay in the wake of Arthur's death -- being sure to catch the holes in the dam before they burst in on not only the Company, but on Arthur and Angela's own secret agenda.

With Arthur gone, Angela only had herself to do the job that had once been occupied by two. It was nothing Angela wasn't equipped to do, she could do the work of ten men, let alone two, but it was rocky at first and Angela's children wondered what was going on with their mother. As each passing month that led to the November election had Angela following one "stunt, " as Nathan would call them, after another. Peter was worried, Nathan was getting angry and very close to becoming fed up with her, if he wasn't already.

Nathan remarked about it to Peter only a few months after his father's death; her peculiar actions and demeanor. Peculiar to Nathan, only because there was no way for Angela to explain why she was acting so strange. So, it was her explanations, her excuses, that were so peculiar.

What had really happened Angela never told; she could never tell for Angela had to keep her secrets, for her secrets were the lid of Pandora 's Box. If she revealed them, Angela felt, all hell would break loose onto the world. This meant that Angela had to be content with the fact that her sons, Nathan particularly, would have to live with the thought that his dear old mother had gone a little nutty.

Angela didn't care what Nathan thought of her as long as he was safe, safe from the madness. A man who can fly is nothing but powerless in a world of people who don't need guns. Even in a world of people who do.

* * *

**Nathan & Peter**

_A few months before_

_Arthur Petrelli's Study, the Petrelli Home_

* * *

"It's like she has a screw lose," Nathan said harshly as he packed up his father's desk into a box. "Hey, where's that big black filing cabinet?" He looked in a corner.

"What file cabinet?" Peter pushed himself off the window sill where he had been sitting.

"Look there's a sun mark," he pointed to a square that was darker then the rest of the carpet. "Ma!" Nathan yelled. "Where's Pop's filing cabinet?"

"I threw it out!" she yelled back from the living room.

The truth was the Company had come through and taken everything that left a trail back to them - it was what they always did.

Peter walked over to the study door and closed it. "Mom is not going crazy..." he stressed in a low voice.

"She's pretty bonkers to me. Saying any damn thing she pleases..." Nathan said sharply.

"She's so used to having Dad around, I think she's just compensating… you know trying to speak for two people in a way– " he gestured with his hands. "So… she's just speaking her mind more."

"More? Pete, Ma was always the one who let Pop talk. She hardly ever really speaks her mind flat out. She'd always let Pop speak and then silently pushes her agenda, later. Ma's controlling, there's a difference." He looked at Peter. "Sometimes I think we grew up with different mothers..."

"In a sense...I think we did." Peter caught sight of his father's purple heart. "Think about it. She was like twenty-one when she had you, she was just a kid –"

"Are you saying I was a starter child?" Nathan smirked.

"Maybe…" Peter joked.

"Help me pack this up. I want to keep the medal." He pointed to the Purple Heart. "And the pictures – the clock too." He waved his finger in the general direction of the objects in front of Peter.

"I can't believe you're moving into dad's office."

"When I run for congress I need a place as my primary residency, so I can run in the district. "Nathan picked up a picture of himself and his dad, it was Nathan's graduation. "I'll probably be staying here a few nights a week when it gets closer to the election. Election night for sure. I'll need a place to work when I'm here on and off. So for now this is home." He set the picture down on his desk. " It's time to get over it, Pete. Pop would have said the same thing."

Angela saw it all in a dream two weeks prior, but there was nothing she could do about her behavior at the moment. And so there was nothing she could do about what Nathan thought. But as the days passed and time ticked closer to the election she was quickly returning to the appearance of some kind of normalcy as she finally got her footing. That was until the socks incident.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_Six weeks before the election_

Bloomingdales, Manhattan

* * *

She was being followed for sure and if she didn't think quickly, he might just kill her there or off somewhere in the basement of Bloomingdales. Angela had to find a way to get a small crowd around her, a distraction, people, he wouldn't do it with people around – they never do. She knew her and Arthur's enemies as well as she knew their heroes, but then that line was always blurry anyhow.

Angela walked at a quick pace as she looked around aggressively for a crowd of people, which was hard on a Monday morning. She needed a witness or a large crowd to protect her; she needed protection. But Angela was always quick on her feet and she finally knew just what to do.

And, as if it was just a normal gesture, Angela Petrelli took a pair of designer socks, threw them in her purse and walked through the front door. The alarm went off instantly and Angela Petrelli was taken off by two armed security guards while a small crowd watched on

An hour later an unknown man was seen being taken away by a tall black man and a man with horned-rimmed glasses. And while the tall black man took the unknown man upstate for incarceration, the man with the horn-rimmed glasses paid a visit to an Indian cab driver named Suresh.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_a few hours later_

Manhattan

* * *

When Peter asked his mother why she had done what she had done, her only answer was, "I just wanted to feel alive again " and it was the truth; it was just about _other_ things. But looking into her loving son's eyes - her pride, her joy - it was all okay. Now it was time she went home.

After all, Peter's first words to his mother when he saw her sitting in the police station were "Are you okay?"

Nathan wasn't so concerned with her, he was more occupied with how it would reflect on his campaign; doing what Nathan always did, taking his mother for granted. Linderman was right; Nathan was ready to play his part. He was Arthur's boy, Angela had no doubts.

"Nathan only cares about himself." Peter told her as they exited into the bullpen of the police station after Nathan had left them to take care of himself and his own issues.

"Your father was the same way. Alpha dogs, both of them." Angela retorted to her son

Nathan and Arthur were two peas in a pod, Peter was her boy. Those men -- those men and their ideas, she thought. She had no respect for the fact that being an alpha dog had started this whole thing - brought the madness into her life. Her bitterness blamed it all on testosterone and evilness. If Angela could have thrown in all organized sports, she would have. Yet in reality both Petrelli boys were equal parts their mother and equal parts their father - it was a genetic 50/50.

Peter was concerned for his mother as he helped her on with her black and white coat. Angela could tell. Mothers just can, but she knew he didn't have to worry, that was her job.

"You, in the meantime, for all your selflessness, and sitting with dying people. What? You're gonna retire on what you make?"

"Maybe I'll just shop lift my socks."

"Don't get smart." She gestured toward him with her gloves.

Angela had been growing impatient for a lot of things lately. Nothing was going her way, she had waited too long, worked too hard. The time was at hand and now with her husband's death there was very little time before what was to come next - micro-management was the only way.

And Peter seemed to get the brunt of it. She worried for him. He needed to get out from Nathan's shadow. Be his own man; learn to fend for himself. This was what she struggled to explain to him at his father's funeral and for months afterward, but he wasn't getting it. She feared he never would. There was very little movement for Angela's taste.

Perhaps it was her talk with Charles on his rooftop a few weeks after Arthur's death. They were having tea while Simone, Charles' daughter, showed Peter around Charles' penthouse.

"Charles, don't get me wrong. I love Peter, but that kid can barely get out of his own way. He's ruled by insecurities. He's weak." Her own words ran in her head.

All Angela knew was that she needed to get some sense into her boy, or life would step all over him, use and abuse him and throw him out and who he would become might not only destroy the boy she knew, but the world itself.

Angela was changing tactics; she prayed it wouldn't be too late. She felt Peter couldn't handle it, the world, he was too sensitive. She had tried to shut him away from it, but now it dawned on her that her husband was partly right and he needed to understand it more – he needed to learn to protect himself. His mother and brother wouldn't always be around. But Angela seemed to forget that Peter was her boy after all and he could take more than she ever could imagine. And it would be the only way that Peter would become the man she wished he could be. The man on this day she was urging him to be. She wasn't trying to separate her boys; she just wanted Peter to be independent. Perhaps she had held him too close for too long.

"When you put everyone else first you end up last," Angela told her son with an all-knowing sound to her voice.

Angela knew that from experience. She would put herself and her family first, so no one would ever make _her _last again - Peter had to do the same thing.

"You always put Nathan first, he took advantage." Just like the world would do to him, if he didn't listen. People would take advantage of his good nature. And she knew Peter would believe them and the consequences would be deadly.

"Yeah, it wasn't you that was just pushing him right out in front of me?" Peter demanded.

"He took up more space than you. Demanded more attention. And besides, it's not my fault you allowed it." Angela didn't have the time or the patience to take the elevator. She waved it off and took the stairs.

"He's my brother. I love him."

Angela wasn't happy. She knew love was her downfall and it did not save the world. "Love is overrated."

"He loves me, too. I know him. We've always been close."

"Rose-colored glasses."

Angela had seen Nathan at his best and at his worst, she saw him when he thought no one was looking. She knew him better than he thought she did. She loved Nathan, but he was selfish, just like his father and just like she had been.

Peter needed to see the world for what it was. She felt it was, now, the only way she could protect him from it. Protect his heart from the world.

Peter didn't think it was for his protection or his benefit. "That's cruel, Mom! Look, since Dad died, I know you've been feeling free to speak your mind, but it wouldn't hurt to edit yourself every once in a while." He walked away from her on the steps where they had stopped.

"I"m sorry if the truth hurts." Her voice changed, she was trying to explain to her son how she only wanted what was best for him. "I'm just saying, you hero-worshiped him. And those feelings were never returned."

Perhaps Angela was seeing too much of her husband in her son. She too had looked that way at her husband, in her own way, and to her own belief never got back what she gave in return. For years Angela saw the same thing in Peter and Nathan's relationship and it pained her. She knew her boys loved each other as much as she loved them, but Nathan took Peter's love for granted. That, of course, would all change soon.

But at this time, Angela understood and felt, in her soul ,that just like Arthur, Nathan would always be looking out for number one, no matter what the cost, all under the umbrella of "I'm just trying to do the right thing here." Arthur's old mantra of sorts, crowned on the head of her firstborn son.

Angela was now a bitter woman, using her anger toward her husband so she wouldn't explode. Because deep down inside she knew, in the end after years of disappointment, Arthur had finally come through for her. Arthur Petrelli finally did what Angela had asked him to do and it cost him his life. Coming to terms with that truth was too much for Angela to deal with, so she pressed on with her life, with the future. For if Angela didn't look to the future, the past would destroy her and she wouldn't allow that.

Peter defended himself. "You're wrong. It's biological, and I can't help it, we're connected."

_Connected_, Angela thought, there was that word again, so prominent in her life - like it was stalking her.

And then it happened. The moment Angela Petrelli had been dreading since Peter's birth. He got serious and he poured his heart out to her about Nathan and Heidi's accident - the one Angela had dreamt herself.

"…I woke up, and I knew he'd been hurt." Peter looked at her with innocent eyes in that same way Peter had looked at her when he told her wanted to be a nurse so he could, " help people".

Angela stared down at her sonintensely, slapped him across the face for his foolishness and walked down the stairs toward her car, but of course it wasn't foolishness. She only wanted him to think it was.

* * *

**Angela**

_Manhattan_

* * *

Angela had said goodbye to Peter in the parking lot and was now being driven home from the police station by her driver. She was in the middle of a phone call, on her cell, in the middle of downtown manhattan.

"Don't worry, Angela," said a voice on the other end of the phone. "We got him. He won't be bothering you or your family any more."

"Thank you, Daniel." Angela told Linderman and hung up the phone.

But Angela's mind was reeling. It was happening. What Peter had told her -- about a dream he had, a feeling, something, he was describing to her what was the start of precognitive dreaming.

It was now a fact, Peter Petrelli had taken his mother's power and only she knew it - Peter had finally manifested. Angela was right, the clock was ticking; it was all coming to a head. Angela knew of only one place she could go.

"I need to make a quick stop first, "Angela told the driver. "You know the place."

* * *

**Charles & Angela**

_Manhattan_

* * *

Angela walked into Charles' bedroom and was caught by what she saw. Charles Deveaux, one of the strongest men she had ever known, laid out, unconscious, dying in his bed. She hadn't even taken her coat off, wearing the same black and white coat she had worn from the police station. She gripped her purse in her hand tightly.

Simone saw the look in her eyes.

"I didn't know..." Angela fought back her tears which only looked like shock.

"I figured with Peter..."

"He didn't tell me, but then I didn't ask." She never took her eyes off Charles.

"The doctors said he should've been dead five months ago." Simone's eyes were full of tears.

"Well, your father is a fighter. Always was." Angela's voice was low and husky.

"I'll leave you two alone." Simone left the room.

Angela let out a huge sigh and looked over at Charles. "Well, "she said taking off her gloves. "I don't know If I can stand it if I have to hold up both sides of this conversation," she had a joking sense in her voice, but then her chin started to quiver, but she pushed it back. "Well, then," she tossed her hair and set her gloves, along with her purse, onto Charles' desk

She caught sight of the gold records on the wall for a moment before taking long strides over to his bed.

"I guess I'll just have to make conversation for the both of us then, "she took Charles hand and sat on the edge of the bed.

Angela looked at Charles and leaned in.

"Charles, "she said with all seriousness, "I know you can hear me, you don't fool me." She smiled a little. "I don't have anyone to talk to anymore... with Arthur gone."

She put her other hand on top of his.

"It's been so long. I know we lost touch...I had forgotten how easy it was to talk to you." She paused. "I'm not sure what to do, Charles." She patted his hand. "He's manifested."

She nodded her head and her eyes got red.

"Now. Peter. Now of all times. I knew it was coming, but so soon. I'm fearful for him, Charles. Like I told you on the roof, he's weak, he can't get out of his own way, how can he handle being an empath- it will be too much for him, I just know it. He's just too weak for this. His heart won't be able to take it. I've known this for so long, Charles. I've lived with it for so long. This is my boy and in all my dreams, he's dead – I can't let that happen. Except for you, me and Nathan I can never let him meet another person like us, I can't let him know what he's capable of - it will kill him — I can't lose him. Not my boys. Not after Arthur. Not now. I've worked too hard and too long to protect them."

Her eyes got that intense emotion in them.

"And I will lie and I will steal, and I will cheat – if it means my dreams will not come true. And you will help me protect him, won't you, Charles? That's why he was sent to you... you will take care of him... like you took care of me and my son will do the same for you."

Her emotion was getting the better of her.

"And you will see Charles... that I was right, Linderman and I were right. This world WILL be won on strength. Love is a wonderful thing in theory..." she ran her hand along the side of his face. " But, I've learned the hard way... it won't save the world."

She looked out the window with a starry-eyed look on her face.

"I wish you could see it, it's going to be beautiful... and my son** Nathan** will lead the way... and all of our sacrifices will be for _something_. I promise you. And all the bad futures I have ever seen will be no more." Angela stood, leaned in and kissed her old friend on the head. "See you in my dreams, my dear friend."

Simone walked in. "I'm sorry I forgot– I needed to get..."

"No. It's alright." Angela straightened up and made sure none of her tears had leaked out. "I was just on my way out." Angela crossed to the desk to retrieve her bag and gloves. As she passed Simone she set her hand on her arm. "Do me a favor and just don't tell my son I was here."

Simone nodded her head yes.

"He's a wonderful man, your father." Angela eyes showed she was being truthful. "You're lucky to have him as a father."

Simone was about to lose herself in her emotion. "Thank you." She could barely get out the words and she nodded her head. Angela took a final look at Charles and left the apartment.

Angela felt much too young to be so well acquainted with death.

* * *


	23. Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter 22

_(Angela, Peter, Nathan, Charles, Linderman)_

* * *

_Later That Day_

* * *

Angela Petrelli walked into her bedroom at a quickened pace, she wasn't going anywhere important, she just always carried herself as if she was. Some would say she was impatient, like not wanting to wait for the elevator to come, but when Angela Petrelli didn't wait and took the stairs instead, she called it determination.

She tossed her purse onto the bed with a grace and femininity that still had the forcefulness of her queen-like gestures. She quickly, with only three tugs on the latches, had her coat off and tossed on the bed with the efficiency of a general. It was just her way. Nothing in her life was done lightly now, it was always done with a sense of purpose.

Angela caught herself in the mirror as she turned and flung her hair off her forehead with her fingers, tossing her head with her new short haircut - she had cut it almost all off a few months before Arthur died. It took less time, for time was one thing that was in short supply, and it gave her a sense of empowerment. Arthur always liked her hair long.

She sighed at the weight and the burden she saw in her reflection. She felt too young to be a grandmother and a widow, but it was just who she was now - it was the reality. Soon she found herself setting on the side of her bed before lying down, taking another slow breath in and out.

And then she turned for her purse and found herself staring down Arthur's side of the bed. It looked so cold and empty and she felt his absence. And the next thing Angela knew she had pulled herself to his side of the bed, raising the skin of her finger tips over his pillow before leaning in and taking hold of it. She smelled it, and it smelled like him. Tears came to her eyes and the emotion churned inside of her and even though she was alone Angela Petrelli wouldn't let herself cry and she fought it, she fought it hard as it built up in her throat.

And she hated him, hated him for leaving her, she hated him for being so selfish, she told herself, but it was the most unselfish thing a man could do. She tried every reason in her head to blame anyone but herself, for Angela knew deep down inside that Arthur Petrelli had killed himself for her, for Claire – his family – all because Angela had asked him to do it. She asked him, and he obeyed her wishes - after all those years.

Angela couldn't bare the thought, no matter how necessary she knew it was, that she only had herself to blame. For Angela Petrelli knew and understood, and practiced, the art and actions by cutting out one's heart – she knew it was necessary to sacrifice her needs for the sake of the larger whole - a greater good. Her brain understood, but her heart just didn't. And she still struggled with that.

And she heard the words run through her head that her husband had said to her, so many years ago, when she was still just a child of 19, "I promise I will never hurt you," and the rage seethed up inside of her.

Angela eyed a paperweight on Arthur's side of the bed and she found herself grabbing it and throwing it straight in front of her, until it smashed the mirror of her vanity with a crash. Angela saw her distorted image looking back at her and she again cursed Arthur to the heavens.

But on Angela Petrellis' finger still laid her wedding ring and her engagement ring. And she would never take them off until she was forced to by armed guards after she had been arrested for murder only about a year later. And actions speak louder than words.

That night Angela dreamt of Peter jumping off a roof. She thought it was metaphorical; she was wrong.

When Nathan called her early that morning to tell her what had happened, he let her down easy, he did what his mother would do and had done before; he used facts to spin lies to hide his own secrets.

"I think he tried to kill himself, Ma." Nathan finally told her. She knew he was lying. He was using his father the way Angela soon would - Like mother, like son.

"It's alright, dear. I'll be right there."

And like any normal mother, Angela Petrelli stopped off at Bloomingdales first and bought her son what she felt he needed - a sweater. Why she had no idea, it was her mother's instinct kicking in perhaps. He needed a nice cardigan sweater; he couldn't afford such things, or chose not to wear them. She just found herself doing it.

Perhaps it was because of what she was about to do. To protect her son Angela Petrelli was on her way to call her son crazy -- sick. To protect her secrets, Angela Petrelli would be lying to Peter. It was a plan she didn't even have to think about, it was just instinct. After all, in her mind, she was protecting him.

When she saw him there in the hospital bed, Angela had sudden flashes of that boy long ago. Not just her own son, but the boy she saw vulnerable and lying on that cold slab at Primatech research - the other empath. Her eyes filled with small tears as she smiled at Peter from the other side of the glass.

Peter looked at her sheepishly as if he wasembarrassed.

It was time to spin her half-truths. It was time to do what she felt was the right thing, under the circumstances.

"Help me understand what you were doing on that roof," she said with her all her strength and force.

"I can't. Not yet, but I will. You just have to trust me."

And there it was, that look, the look Charles had talked about, the look she hadn't seen for some reason. It was official. Peter tried to fly. She knew it. He had absorbed her power and Nathan's power and he didn't even know it. And as far as she was concerned, he never would.

Angela sat down on the bed. "There's something you need to know about your father's death" This was a truth. "He commented suicide. " This was a half truth.

"What?"

"He committed suicide, I found him on the floor of the bathroom." Near the bathroom, in the bathroom, same difference.

"You said he had a heart attack." Peter was more than taken aback

"I lied -- for his reputation" Half truth. "His heart was fine." That was a full out truth.

"But he had two other's before that."

"Well, I lied about those, too," Angela was agitated.

This was the truth. She always lied for Arthur, to protect their secrets, she always lied. "Suicide attempts. Both of them. He finally got what he wanted." And this Angela believed was the truth for she felt she had seen her husband slowly killing himself for years, just for different reasons.

And she told him all about how Arthur had been diagnosed with manic depressive disorder, which was a truth, she may have fudged the age who knows, the lie was just going on so long, it took on a life of itself – but it was the truth. She told him how they didn't want to tell him because he was too sensitive. This was true for other reasons.

"It was just who he was." Angela said, which for other reasons was a truth within itself. What Arthur had may not have been chemical, but it was something he had been born with.

"...genetic link..." ran off her lips like honey. Arthur and herself had for sure passed something down to Peter, but it wasn't depression - If only it was, she thought.

Everything Angela Petrelli told Peter was the truth in some respects and the intention behind it was honest. Angela Petrelli was honestly concerned for her son's life, but none of what she said was honest.

And then those words. Those words from so many years ago that ran off the doctor's lips like steel pins, dripped off her own lips to Angela's son. "Delusions of grandeur." Just another truth molded to her fancy. "Thinking you're invincible or indestructible. They are irrational thoughts that then turn suicidal."

This of course was not true, but it was nothing that Arthur Petrelli hadn't gone though. It was nothing the doctors hadn't told her when he came back from Vietnam. Nothing the two of them hadn't struggled with, before they knew, nothing that wasn't apart of their lives at some point.

It was for his own benefit she told herself. Angela felt she had to be cruel to save her son from an even crueler fate. The end justify the means, and as she told herself, none of it was entirely false. She just deleted the, "special" details.

And then Angela Petrelli became overcome with emotion, because the sentiment behind her lies was true, she was trying to save her son's life. This was always the goal. After all she had loved him even before he was born. "Because there's something else I never told you." She tried to hold it in, but it was hard. "Come here...,' she whispered and they leaned into each other. "You were always my favorite. I cannot lose you." And it was the truth. And Angela Petrelli had just proved how much she didn't want that to be true, by her words and her actions.

And when Nathan used it all in public to protect himself from any further scrutiny she turned toward Peter at the back of the hall with utter concern, watching him walk, humiliated, from the room.

"Oh, Peter," she thought, but Nathan's actions didn't surprise her and she understood it.

It was everything she tried to tell Peter in the police station. Nathan was just like his father. For when a Petrelli used someone else to keep their own secrets, no matter what the cost, she knew it was nothing more than a genetic link. It all just had to be done; it was the right thing to do. Angela felt for her sons, but as long as they were alive, she didn't care where her actions took her. It was just who she was now.

Later that night Angela was driven home from Nathan's fundraiser as the gloomy day's rain hit her window and drizzled down like crystal veins. Many times Angela Petrelli had lost consciousness in the back of a car, while her driver drove her home, dreaming of some horrible future. A future Angela would then have to push back into her mind, recovering as quickly as she could from the fright so not to let her face give her away, or not to go mad.

But somehow today as Angela gazed out of her back car window her thoughts didn't go to the future, but to the past. And her eyes weren't closed, but open, heavy, but open as her mind went to a place it rarely went anymore, the past.

Angela rested her hand on the edge of the door as the headlights outside made the dark car fill with light in intermediate shards and flashes. Suddenly, the edge of her fingertips felt something cold and metal.. She reached into

Arthur had a nasty habit of leaving his cuff links in the car door at the end of a long day - somehow after six months no one had found it.

Angela lifted the cuff link up to the window and into the light to get a good look at it and it was then that a memory came to her mind - just another lie in the cog of her life - just another moment in which she was doing what she did the most these days: deceiving her sons. the small shelf in the car window and out of the darkness pulled out what appeared to be a cuff link - it was Arthur's.

Arthur had a nasty habit of leaving his cuff links in the car door at the end of a long day - somehow after six months no one had found it.

Angela lifted the cuff link up to the window and into the light to get a good look at it and it was then that a memory came to her mind - just another lie in the cog of her life - just another moment in which she was doing what she did the most these days: deceiving her sons.

* * *

**Four months before...**

* * *

Angela Petrelli's boys were different, that was for sure. And not in the way that made them special, just in the way that made them human. If Angela went a day, a week or even more than that without hearing from Nathan, she wasn't surprised. She never had a bad thought, most of the time she was the one calling him. If Peter went a day or two without calling he, she would worry - It was just his nature.

After Arthur died Peter seemed to call her with more concern in his voice, ask her to get out more, take a class, none of which interested her - besides she had enough on her plate for the things that were to come.

Peter's concern also meant he would get the urge to personally check up on his mother, which lead to a few unannounced visits – which for a woman who kept secrets, wasn't the best of situations.

Peter Petrelli walked into his childhood home dressed the way he was a lot lately. Blue scrubs, red hoodie, a tan coat and a messenger bag slung over one shoulder to the other hip. He was more than surprised when he found the front door open. Even more so when he had to dodge out of the way of a man exiting the house with a box full of clothes.

He had that confused, inquisitive look on his face he often had. Peter watched as two other men, with boxes, walked down the stairs and through the foyer as he entered. Peter figured they could only be coming from one place.

Peter followed the group of men like a parade, until it led him right into his mother's bedroom where he could see her standing inside what had been his father's walk-in closet. She was signing a clipboard for one man before he exited followed by another man who was holding a large box. Peter moved out of the way to let the men pass and that was when Angela saw him.

"Peter?! I wasn't expecting you. Don't you have work."

Peter noticed right away how half the closet was completely empty.

Peter kissed his mother on the cheek, which was expected. "I took a later shift. What's going on here?"

"I'm finally getting rid of your father's things."

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Whose gonna wear them. Me? You?" She walked to a box and folded some shirts into it. "Nathan's not one for vests." She gestured with her head.

"Yeah, he sure had a lot of them." Peter looked around.

"Your father loved a good three-piece suit" She paused from her folding for a moment to reminisce, she shook it off and flushed the image from her mind.

"You mean you liked him in a three-piece suit." He gave his mother a look.

Angela shot a glare back at Peter, but it was somehow playful.

"You're sure this is what you want to do?" Peter asked her again.

"It's just taking up empty space. It's time to move on."

"I don't believe you."

"Your choice." She continued her folding.

Peter took her hand to stop her from packing. "I just think in a few months from now, a few weeks from now you might look back and regret this. Wait. Wait a few more months, then decide."

"You can help me pack or not. I'm not changing my mind." She walked away from Peter and took what looked like the last pairs of shoes and threw them in another box.

"You're as stubborn as Nathan sometimes."

She shot him a look. "Look whose talking?" She smiled. "Who was it when he was _it_ six wouldn't budge until someone bought him a red shiny radio flyer?"

"I was four."

"No excuse." She tossed it off.

Peter laughed.

"We all share DNA Peter, we just manifest it in different ways." She paused realizing what she had said, it was very unlike her to slip like that. Angela picked up the box and handed it to Peter. "Well, if you're going to be in my way, you might as well help."

Peter felt the weight of the box for a moment, not realizing how heavy it would be.

Angela walked away from Peter and started opening drawers to be sure she had everything.

"I think you should reconsider, really. Give it some time-"

Angela opened up the last of the empty drawers with a strong pull. She had pulled open the drawer with so much force that two small cuff links shot forward from the back of the drawer where they had been hiding.

Angela wasn't expecting them to be there and it was as if she had been visited by a time traveler - and her heart skipped a beat- they were the cuff links Arthur had worn on their wedding day. She could see his large smile as he adjusted them on his sleeve cuff, the cockiness in his head bob - they simply said AP on each face.

"I know you're lonely, Mom. You have every right to be, but getting rid of his things - it's not going to make you feel any different. Cutting him out of your life like this... I think it's something when you look back on, you'll regret."

Angela scooped up the cuff links and slammed the drawer shut, almost ignoring what Peter had to say, but really trying to stop herself from exploding with emotion. She took two quick steps and took hold of Peter's left hand, which was still holding the box, taking his fingers forcefully and putting the cuff links into his palm before clasping it closed tightly with her own hand. Peter saw the tears and sadness in his mother's eyes, behind the pulled in emotion.

"You should have something of your father's." And then she left his side.

Peter watched as his mother walked out, concerned for her as he always was, when the cuff links fell from his grasp to the floor.

Peter grunted and knelt down to the floor, holding the box under his left arm to grab the cuff links to his left . When he found one had rolled away, he put the box down and reached his arm to where it lay. As Peter reached out his arm he noticed something against the wall, it looked like a spot of blood. When he looked closer he saw it was blood, blood that had dried and had dripped down into the carpet.

"Mom!" Peter yelled to his mother. "Mom, what's this? Come in here."

"What's what dear?"

"Is this blood?"

"What , no. I'm sure it's not."

Angela flashed back to a day many years ago, but not that far away. She came home to an empty house, she thought. Made her way into her bedroom and set a few bags of clothes in her closet. It was when she entered Arthur's closet that she had an uneasy feeling. She smelled blood on the carpet and if there was one thing Angela knew the smell of, distinctly, it was blood - she soon found Arthur covered in blood and slumped in the corner, he tried to speak, but he

In the present Angela easily smiled at Peter.

"Its nothing Peter, just let it be - I'll have it cleaned in the morning. I'm sure Monty or Simon was in here with something or another - I wouldn't let it worry you."

Angela again flashed to that same day in the closet, Arthur bleeding on the ground, but this was moments later and Angela Petrelli stood in front of her husband, facing her assailant, her shoulder bleeding profusely with blood, her body heavy and her head lightheaded, barely able to lift the gun in her hand she fired and shot the woman in front of her dead.

Angela took a deep breath and she was no longer able to hold the gun up as her body was so weak. As her arm dropped the gun fell loose from her hand and onto the ground. Still Angela used all her power to stand upright and with her other hand took her cell phone from her pocket and hit the first number in her memory: Linderman.

"We've been ambushed at the house, we're upstairs in the bedroom, we need your help." And Angela Petrelli hung up the phone and passed out.

In the present Angela Petrelli reminded her son he had to be at work soon and he left her alone. It was time for Angela to move on.

* * *

**The Present**

_September, 2006_

* * *

Then Angela's phone rang and took her back to her reality and just as if it had woken her from a dream, the shock of the phone made her jump. She was riding in her car, back from Nathan's fundraiser, as the gloomy day's rain hit her window and drizzled down like crystal veins.

"I'm just checking in on you, Angela." He asked, sounding all-knowing.

It was like he was trying to take Arthur's place in all aspects of her life. Take up the space that Arthur had once breathed in. To Arthur's son, his wife and the world. It had nothing to with caring, and had everything to do with sport.

"Why is that? she asked coldly.

"Seeing your husband die in front of you – no matter how much of a traitor he was... well it can change a person's mood—" He gauged her.

"I have seen my husband die so many times..." She retorted. "Literally and figuratively, why should this time be any different?"

"If you knew anything, Angela. About the girl? You'd tell me wouldn't you?"

"Why would I keep secrets from you, we have a world to save."

"Good." He smiled. What Angela Petrelli didn't know was that Linderman was looking at a painting of Claire when he said that to her and he and Bob knew who she was for a long time now. Bob had sent his daughter Elle to watch the girl, but when nothing seemed to happen it seemed a misuse of her time and she was taken off the assignment. That didn't mean Linderman, Bob and the Company weren't watching the Bennets from afar.

That night Angela Petrelli had a dream with the words "Save the cheerleader, save the world." She had no idea what it meant, and she told no one. But, one thing did worry her, Claire was now a cheerleader. It was just another secret Angela kept from Daniel Linderman.

Angela Petrelli found herself in very unfamiliar places when she dreamed at night, but on this night, only a few days after Peter had jumped from that rooftop, Angela Petrelli found herself on a rooftop of a different kind, from her young adulthood, or childhood as she would mockingly call it in her head: The Deveaux Rooftop. She was dressed in her robe and nightgown.

The first thing Angela noticed when she walked out onto Charles' roof was that it was cold. She undid her robe and pulled it closer to her before tying it closed again for warmth. It was the first thing she remembered because the rest of the scene she had been seeing for years. The broken down city, burnt, on fire, melted down to nothing, just the burnt ashes of devastation. Angela was having another one of those dreams.

Suddenly a deep male voice came from the shadows. "I guess when you see that kind of devastation for so many years, you kind of become desensitized to it?"

Angela turned toward the doors to the roof as a man walked out of the shadows. That man was CharlesDeveaux. He was dressed the way he was the last time she saw him, a nice pair of pajamas, a blue pinstriped robe, and he was no longer in a wheelchair. He was walking toward her.

"But you..." Charles glared at her with a sly smile. "I just don't know..." He smiled. "Hello, Angela. I think we need to talk."

**To be continued...**


	24. Chapter Twenty Three: Charles & Angie

Chapter 23

Angela and Charles

* * *

The first thing Angela noticed when she walked out onto Charles' roof was that it was cold. She undid her robe and pulled it closer to her, before tying it closed again, for warmth. It was the first thing she noticed because the rest of the scene she had already seen -- for years now. The broken down city, burnt, on fire, melted down to nothing, just the burnt ashes of devastation. Angela was having another dream.

A deep male voice came from the shadows, "I guess when you see that kind of devastation for so many years you kind of become desensitized to it."

Angela turned toward the sound and the center doors to the roof as a man walked out of the shadows. That man was Charles Deveaux. He was dressed the way he was the last time she saw him, a nice pair of pajamas and a blue pinstriped robe.

"You..." Charles glared at her playfully. "I just don't know..." he sarcastically nodded his head and showed her his sweet honest eyes.

"What is this? Did you bring me here?" Angela didn't like being shanghaied in her own dream. " Are you trying to prove some point, Charles." It all of a sudden dawned on her that Charles was walking. "No, no. This isn't real. You're not real. You can't be doing this, it's not possible. This is all in my head."

"We both know nothing in our lives isn't possible."

"You have the virus, Daniel told me – there's no way–"

"Sometimes one can do amazing things when Peter is around..."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, it really doesn't matter if you believe me or not, it's that we're here, isn't it?"

"You think seeing this is going to change me, change my mind." She was defiant. " You don't think I don't know any of this. I've seen all of this for years and it's terrible and it's awful. But it can't be stopped. None of it can. What's so wrong with using what's to come to form something bigger. We're saving the world, Charles. The only way we know how. It's the only way it can be done."

She was absolute. "We were all so young and stupid and deluded and naive, thought we alone could fix everything – we can't, not by ourselves. No one can. The end justify the means – it's the lay of the land. I learned that the hard way, from a cold hard winter.

"You've given up." .

"Given up?" This didn't sit well with Angela. " You've given up. Linderman and I -- Arthur, Harry...we're the ones who stayed and fought. You're the ones who left. I'm the one, Daniel and I, we're the one's who haven't given up."

"It's never enough for you is it, Angela. Nothing ever is good enough for you. You always have to keep on going." He defied her.

"Don't call me a survivor, Charles, I may throw you off this building," she said in her cold sarcastic wit.

"I'd like to see you try." He smirked.

"You've got me there," she said to him with a glint in her eye and raised her eyebrows at him.

They exchanged all-knowing glances at each other.

"I guess I do. See, this is the Angela I remember, this is my friend. You were fun once, Remember?"

"Life changed that." She walked away from him. "Heartache. Disappointment. It all comes with living." She walked halfway to the cherub and surveyed the scene. "I used to think this was a metaphor."

"We all did." He reminded her.

She played with her finger nails, fidgeting "It might as well be, " she said softly.

"I'm sorry Arthur never loved you the way you felt you deserved."

"Arthur?!" She turned toward him. " You think this is about Arthur? I am not defined by a man, Charles. I'm not that kind of a woman."

"No, you're not. You're just human, Angela. We all need love. Arthur — the world, they just didn't love you enough, for your standards, did they? I am sorry for that. But your expectations were too high – you asked for too much. It was never enough. Of course you were disappointed. The fact that it loved you back. Arthur, everyone – the world --that should have been enough," he said forcefully.

Charles looked at her with such love as he did everyone. "Why isn't it enough, Angela? It's enough for Peter." He paused. "And your children can't save you, Angela. Like I told you years ago, you need to look inside, you need to save yourself. No one can do it for you. In the end, all that really matters is love." He took a few steps forward. " And I love you Angela. Just like I love Peter."

"Love is overrated," she hissed.

"You don't believe that. Your actions say otherwise, Angela. Actions speak louder than words."

"I believe that from experience love may be all well and good--."

"In theory.—"

Her eyes sparkled. "I knew you could hear me."

"Why don't you ever tell your sons you love them?

"What?"

"I'm just curious?" he said with his all-knowing face. " You may say love is overrated, but you care for those boys. You care for them more than anyone. I've seen it. You tell me, you tell other people, but you never say the words. They say it to each other, to you. Why don't you ever say the words, Angela?"

"Because they're just words, Charles, " she said bitingly ."I don't have to tell my family that I love them. They know I care.. I show them I care by my actions. My actions, Charles."

"I told Peter I loved him."

"Arthur used to yell he loved me from the hilltops, look where that got us." Her words were filled with bitterness of a broken heart.

"Well, it got you Peter and Nathan." He smirked.

Angela turned to Charles with a serious face. "I'm just a wife and a mother, Charles," she said it pointedly to stop the conversation. It had its own sense of irony as well; her eyes danced.

"Just not one adverse to violence?" Charles raised his eyes at her.

"If the job calls for it. This world is not a pretty place, with bright colors and rainbows." Her voice was dark. "You know that. You and I have felt and seen the _brunt_ of that. But they don't. Our children. They're infants compared to what we know about the world. They need to be protected, that's all I'm doing. My secrets are my own business."

"Yes... I have lived the same life as you have, Angela – although to be fair, no one lives the same life. There are things about you –that happened to you – that I could never know – never understand. If I had known what Maury did to you, I would have stopped it. I know I couldn't have stopped anything else --any of the other things you feel the world did to you, but if I had known, I would have stopped that."

"Old news." She threw it off as if it was true, but it wasn't. It was never old news. She only pushed the past away to protect herself from it.

"See the difference between me and you, Angela, is that I've taken all the hurt and the pain of my life and through it I have hope."

"You think I don't have faith? I have faith in the humanity of this planet to join together, to rise up – much more than you do."

"I said you lost your hope, not faith. There's a difference"

"Please," she stressed and rolled her head. She walked away from him.

"By the way, you're no longer a wife, you may be a mother, but you're no longer a wife."

Angela paused where she was - that stung.

Charles knew he had wounded her. "I'm sorry if the truth hurts." He waited for her response with almost a sense of glee.

Angela spun around, not liking her own words thrown in her face, her lips pursed together as her brow furrowed

Charles laughed at her. "I'm sorry, that look. It's just funny sometimes."

Angela wasn't too happy and she looked at Charles with her angry face. Charles broke the gaze first and started to walk the roof as Angela spoke.

"This is not 1965 anymore, Charles. This is a new dawn, a new time. Peace, love and happiness– this broken record of yours. It's old and out of style-- that love can save the world – look out," she gestured her hand out toward the city. " Look out at all of them – they say they want to save the world. But none of them take any action. But I'm taking actions. THAT is how action speaks louder than words."

"Like Adam..."

"Adam wanted to cleanse the world with a deadly virus. All we're doing is taking a terrible yet inevitable tragedy and turning it into a positive... see that's your problem, Charles. You're the one with unrealistic expectations. You have too much faith in people, while I put my faith in the future. "

"Your faith of the future is limited."

"You've given up. Like Kaito, and Suzanne, just like Victoria. I'm the one still fighting."

"I haven't given up – I'm being a realist, something you used to tell me."

"I used to say a lot of things."

"You sound like Arthur."

Angela huffed.

"Changing the small things is easy, Angela. Sometimes saving the larger things takes time, takes all your might. That is the sacrifice, Angela! Not this!"

"You gave up, you left, you stopped fighting while we had to stay back and fight – you left us alone!"

"No. You've given up. Again, Angela."

"Life is inevitable, it can't be stopped."

"So, you try then!"

"Try?! Try?! I tried, I tried for thirty years until it made me sick and my family sick and still nine out of ten times, nothing changes, it doesn't work, Charles. Get over it."

He got in her face. "The one out of the ten times it does work is the reason you try...no matter what!! Because _sometimes_, it's not inevitable.** Sometimes** you don't know unless you keep on trying."

"You're fighting awfully hard, Charles, for a man resigned to his own death. You didn't seem to have so much conviction about the bomb on your roof six months ago – when you _peacefully_ tried to change my mind. That was a discussion, this is bulldozing. What changed?"

"Because this isn't about stopping the bomb, it never was. You're right the bomb can't be stopped, but it doesn't mean all those people have to die. Die –to bring peace. You need to stop protecting that boy. Peter will save the world, it's just not what you think it is."

"Looks can be deceiving." She said it more for her argument, but it was proving Charles' point.

"Yes, when the right thing to do is subjective you can misinterpret everything when you're dreaming with a broken heart, Angela. Just like Linderman has been wrong before, so have you. You don't know everything... you can't see it all, you can't control it all --but it all doesn't matter now."

"Why?"

"Because I know now that Peter will save the world. I don't have to be Angela Petrelli to see the future. The world will be saved, but your son – your savior will be the world's savior. His heart will help to save the world, I know that. I see it in his eyes. I believe." He paused. "So, I'm not here to save the world, Angela. I'm here to save you."

"Nathan, will save the world." She was defiant.

"I guess one of us will be right and one of us will be wrong." He smirked shoving her own words in her face again.

"None of the ideas you are bringing up are new to me, Charles. No one cannot be ambivalent or not understand this is a hard uneasy decision, but I made it and it's done and I will just have to live with my actions."

"So others don't have to."

"Yes." She smiled slyly. "This is war, Charles. Same as any other, there just aren't any flags and borders or boundaries for that matter, but that's what war is. It's cold and it's bloody and the lines are blurred and sometimes you need to sacrifice yourself for the larger goal. To make a difference. Isn't that all we want in life, to make a difference. I'm making a difference. Finally. We all are. My son Nathan will lead this country and us all. This pain, " she pointed to the city behind her, "that's what this bomb will stop, that's what Nathan will stop. It is his role and mine to play. It's what we do next that matters, it's what comes next that is entirely up to us. " She paused for a moment and her body seem to rise yet her soul seemed to shrink. "My soul is already burning, why not another log in the fire."

"What about Peter?" he said as if he didn't know where this was leading again.

"What about him?" she asked sharply.

"What's his role in all of this?"

"As I've said. He has no role. " She nodded her head.

"He's weak, you say...?"

"Yes. He's weak. For all the reasons I love him are all the reasons Nathan is the one to lead."

"His heart?"

"Yes. Peter is not fit for this world."

"I see different."

"I know you do."

"I know you think your heart makes you weak, Angela. But it doesn't. Your heart, Peter's heart, it makes us strong–powerful, human – and that is your full potential. That is what you and Peter are capable of."

"What is this fascination with my son, Charles. Some unresolved issues we need to discuss here. Maybe you're the one who needs to be on the couch, not me."

"Oh, Angela -- you are wicked," he laughed.

"You have no idea." She smirked.

"Oh, but you see that is the problem. I do. I know how wicked you can be and I know how kind and warm and lost you can feel. You told me all the time how lost you felt back then, just how Peter feels, if you would just reach out to him -- show him he's not alone."

"I can't do that," she scoffed it off.

"Letting go of one of your secrets is not going to kill you, not anymore."

"My secrets kill others," she snarled. " The secrets I hold are the lid to Pandora's Box, I keep them from the world -- for protection."

"I know how important secrets are, I have just as many as you do, but Angela your secrets are his secrets. Nathan's and Peter's, by not showing them who they are, who YOU are. You're denying them to truly know themselves. Denying them who they are. And that is not a choice, it is a demand and a situation you are putting on them. That is not choice, that is bullying Angela."

Charles walked closer to Angela.

"And that's all you and Linderman and all the rest involved these days in your little plan are doing. You're nothing but bullies using the world as your little match game. Let Peter go, Angela. Sometimes we never reach our greatest purpose. SOMETIMES it is our children that finish it for us.

"I won't let him." Her eyes were filled with emotion.

"Why? Because he's yours."

"Yes! Yes!" It finally came out loud and hard. " He's my son and I won't let the world do to him what it did to me. He's just too sensitive. Nathan is the one to lead, I know it."

"I knew a young sensitive girl once, what became of her?"

"She grew up." Her voice was low and grating.

"Growing old does not mean one grows up. Angela. Let him go."

"He's not your son, Charles! Maybe you're the one who has to give him up. He doesn't belong to you."

"And he doesn't belong to you." He said forcefully in her face.

She turned away from him and Charles took her by the forearms, making her look out to the city below.

"Don't tell me you don't feel that. That pain. I know you do. That is not what you're stopping, Angela. This is what you're causing. I told you long ago, you can't live two lives. You can't save the world and protect Peter – even Nathan. You may think you're not being selfish, but you are. You're being selfish, Angela. I know you feel that– all that pain out there, the hurt, Angela."

Charles could tell it was effecting her, she could feel it, like everything in her dreams.

"Get away from me." Angela pushed away, but looked back at Charles with love and affection, as if to say she was sorry for acting that way, she was just frustrated. "I know the pain, I know the hurt this will cause, I've seen it and felt it almost every day of my life, not knowing has never been a luxury I have ever had in my life – but here the ends will justify the means." She again pushed her own propaganda. " It is the way it is. Everything has been thought out and recalculated and put into realistic terms. This is the only option. This bomb will save us all."

"Do you think this bomb will redeem you in some way, Angela?" It was a thought that just dawned on him.

"It will save us all."

Charles sauntered toward Angela, her eyes were a blaze and he knew her so well she could never frighten him.

"But, there's one thing you're missing?"

"What is that?" She was defiant with confidence.

"Peter is the bomb."

Angela shook her head slightly as if to say, 'you're wrong.'

"Now isn't that a little bit of irony." Charles said slyly.

"No, no. That's not true." She stood her ground literally and figuratively. "You're trying to trick me."

"He can absorb any ability, why not?"

"I've stopped that. No, I took care of that. Peter will not be_ searching _out his full potential. I am assured of that. I've worked too hard and too long for him, for my entire family, to not have to live that life. I have brought this burden onto my family by my actions and by my very being – I have passed this pestilence on to my children.--"

"There has to be something you liked about those days. Something about what you can do. It can't be all this self-hatred Angela. And what others put upon you?"

"We thought we alone could fix everything didn't we? Maybe fix ourselves. Fix everything." Her voice had a sense of melancholy anger. "But we can't fix the world alone – one person at a time. We need something bigger, this bomb is something bigger." She took a breath and looked away for a moment. "It's what comes next, that's entirely up to us," she assured herself.

"Part of being a parent is letting your children out into the world and letting them make their own mistakes. "

"At the cost of their own lives!. Of the world? No! If given the choice I choose life over death, any mother would make the same choice."

"Be careful what you wish for." Charles pointed up with his head toward the sky. There was a shot of fire.

"What is that?"

"Your future, Angela." He walked to her and held her close to him, his hand on her shoulder.

Charles leaned in and whispered in her ear. "Enough, Angela. Enough."

Angela tried to struggle like a child, she didn't want to hear it, but Charles kept her close in a loving gesture. "I love you. Just like I love Peter. I worry for you, I worry for this world. For Simone."

Angela stopped struggling.

Charles continued speaking. "But your son will save it, and there is nothing you can do about it. That is what is inevitable." And he kissed the side of her head and a small tear ran down Angela's face. And Angela Petrelli woke up.

Angela was sweating when she woke up and she tried to throw off the dream as nothing, telling herself it didn't effect her. She would not know the full extent of the dream until it was too late.

Angela shifted her legs to the side of her bed and slid her feet into her slippers that were resting on the floor. She stood and took her robe off the bed, throwing it on as she walked toward the bathroom. As she reached the archway Angela took her cell phone off her dresser and and hit the one number, Daniel Linderman, and waited for it to ring on the other end.

"I thought you'd like to know, Charles Deveaux is dead." And she hung up the phone. Angela couldn't explain it, she just knew he was gone.

And Angela Petrelli went to take a shower.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Peter's coma - all hell breaks loose.


	25. Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter 24

_This chapter includes a scene cut from the episode Godsend (Peter waking up from his coma) I take no rights to that scene._

* * *

**Petrellis**

_Some Time Ago_

* * *

She walked the silent hospital hallway to Heidi's room while flashbacks of having her own children danced in her head. She reached the doorway and spied Nathan holding his firstborn son on his lap, while Heidi slept in the bed beside him.

"I'm sorry–" And Angela started to leave.

"No, no–" Nathan said softly. "Come in," he whispered.

"If Heidi is–"

"No, no. She's sound asleep. " Nathan grinned at her. " Come meet your grandson." Nathan smiled at his mother and then back at his son.

Angela walked in slowly eying her grandson for the first time, feeling the same feelings she felt when she first saw Nathan, Peter and Claire as babies, she couldn't help it.

"So, this is— this how it feels." Nathan was moved by his own child.

"Yes." Angela sat down in a chair next to Nathan.

"I should have– I missed all this with Claire."

"Nathan..." she scolded him.

"I know you don't want me to talk about her...but she was my daughter, Ma. I can't just forget her, no matter how short her life was."

"I didn't want to upset. Sometimes we need to leave what's in the past, in the past." Angela set her fingers across her new grandson's forehead. "You were just not mature enough to understand it all – to deal with it, Nathan. You know that. Leave it in the past."

"All I want to do is protect him–"

"Make the world a better place, keep him away from the shadows," she spoke the words like a rock skips across a pond, because it was an obvious answer.

"This is how it feels?"

"Yeah." She nodded her head. "This is how it feels."

"It's overwhelming."

"I know." Her emotions filled her eyes, but she never let her tears fall. " I know." She said soft and slow.

"I'm excited and I'm scared, is that how you and Pop felt? "

"Well, I was considerably younger than you, so take how you're feeling and double that." She raised her eyebrows at him.

Nathan laughed softly and tears started to well in his eyes. "How will I know what to do? How will I know what the right decisions are?"

"You'll just do what you think is the right thing?"

"The right thing.." he repeated, knowing it was a family phrase. His father's words that would then become Nathan's mantra.

"And pray they forgive you." Tears started to well in her eyes.

"I never told you, a few months before the fire, I went to see them and I just..." His eyes filled with emotion. "I couldn't... I couldn't even make myself hold her, I just... walked away." He held in his emotion. "This time I'm gonna do good, I'm gonna do good by my kid, Ma. "

"I have no doubt, Nathan." She leaned in and kissed her grandson on the forehead. "I have no doubt." Angela kissed her son on the forehead as well. "I'm going to go call your father." She smiled and leaned back. "And I still think I'm too young to be a grandmother–"

Nathan smiled and leaned toward her as if he was going to kiss her on the cheek. "I've got a secret for ya, Ma, you're too young to be my mother too." And he kissed her on the cheek.

Angela stood, smiled and walked toward the door.

"Not a day over twenty-five." Nathan ribbed sarcastically.

Angela turned and gave him one of her wry looks, "Don't push it."

* * *

**The Petrelli Family**

Manhattan

_2006_

* * *

Angela reached the hospital at about five in the morning. The sun was just coming up. Nathan had called her the day before, from Texas – Oddess, Texas to be exact. Peter had collapsed, appeared to be in a coma, the doctors weren't sure why.

Angela had insisted Peter be brought back to New York, Nathan agreed – it was where the best doctors were. Angela waited as long as she could before she just had to leave her house. She didn't care if she would have to wait at the hospital, she just hated sitting around in her silent house. Just her and pictures of Peter and pictures of her family.

Angela got to the hospital just in time to meet the medevac, a helicopter, as it arrived.

The doors to the emergency room slid open for Angela and she walked into the hospital with her full force, demanding she be brought to her son. He was just arriving, Nathan had reached her on her cell phone as the car pulled up to the ER doors.

Nathan, still dressed in his tux, called out to his mother and Angela caught up with him just as Peter's gurney was wheeled past her. She took Nathan's hand and her stomach turned. It was her worst nightmare come true. Angela and Nathan tried to keep up with the doctors as they pushed Peter in front of them. It was a chaotic madhouse.

Angela had already arranged for Peter to have a private room. All Angela and Nathan could do was watch as the doctors and nurses hooked Peter up to medical equipment and lifted him into his bed. Watching was something Angela Petrelli was very much used to by now, but it still didn't make it any easier.

She remembers Nathan gripping the edge of her shoulder and her holding his hand. They didn't look at each other, just Peter.

Angela hadn't dreamed of Peter in Texas, of Claire almost being killed, of any of it, and she cursed the heavens as to why she hadn't. Still, by this time Angela knew everything that had happened that night directly from The Haitian. He called her moments after it all went down.

"He wants me to take away her memories." The Haitian told her over the phone in French. "Bennet. Her father."

"No." Angela was firm. "You will not do that." She paused. "You will have to tell her what is going on, within reason. She should always be in control of her mind. You will not violate her like that, do you understand me?" She paused. "She will have to know. And she will have to pretend she doesn't. Am I making myself clear."

"Yes."

"Good."

That night Peter collapsed Angela didn't dream it this time, she really did find out from Nathan.

And now Angela's son, Peter, was facing the fate she had dreaded for years. The fate of all empaths before him, certain death – if his heart couldn't take it, if the strain would be too much.

When he was settled in his bed and Nathan was dealing with the paperwork, Angela reached over and pushed Peter's hair out of his face.

Angela then leaned in and whispered in her son's ear. "You can fight this. You're stronger than this. You're a Petrelli. This will not break you." She leaned back away from his ear, looked at her son, heartbroken, and kissed him on the forehead.

She would sit by his bedside for two weeks.

Nathan stopped shaving on and off. He tried to work on his campaign, but he couldn't. He would sit with his mother for hours in silence. Angela spent most of her time watching Peter, reading assorted books and bugging the nurses and doctors, even though she knew they couldn't possibly understand what Peter was going through. She feared bringing anyone else near Peter with an ability he hadn't already absorbed, so she hadn't called the Company for help. Besides they hadn't been able to help the other empaths in their care, so what was the point. Not even Linderman could help Peter for his situation wasn't technically the usual medical kind. Angela would just have to wait it out.

Plus bringing in her own doctors, specialists from around the world, let Angela feel a sense of control she didn't have at the moment.

Still, Angela knew that her secret, Peter's secret life as an empath was coming to a screeching halt. For there was no way, after this incident, after Peter was checked into the hospital that the Company would not be able to figure out what Peter could do. What Peter was. That Peter had manifested as an empath. His cover was blown, but she would be sure hers wasn't.

The third night in, Angela sat half asleep with a book in her lap when her cell phone rang, it was Linderman. It was a call she had been waiting for. She left her book on her chair and took the call away from Peter's room and the restricted area of the hospital.

"Yes." Angela answered the phone as she exited ICU into an empty hallway.

"So, your boy's an empath." Linderman's voice had a lilt to as if it was a nice surprise.

"So it would seem," she said coldly.

"I am sorry, Angela. I mean for Peter -- the state he's in. I'm sure if we had known, _we_ could have helped him, stopped him. Do you know how many abilities he's absorbed?"

Angela opened a door and walked into an empty stairwell for some privacy.

"No, I have no idea. But more than four for sure, less than 20."

"You never saw this coming, Angela?"

"I can't see everything, Daniel."

"No. I suppose you don't." He paused. "Fever, coma, all the usual signs?"

"Yes. He has all the signs of an empath overload."

"I see." He paused. "I am sorry for that. I'm sure it's very overwhelming." He paused again."Peter is not distracting you from our plan, Angela?"

"Of course not."

"We've seen empaths thrive, Angela. You know that."

"One, Daniel. We knew one. The rest all died." She held in her emotion and it came out as cold anger.

"What can we do, Angela? We could send over some of our doctors?"

"I know the history of this Company with empaths – so no.– And I won't expose him to any more abilities, not in this state. So, you'll excuse me if I say to you, stay the hell away from this hospital!" Angela hung up the phone and returned to Peter's bedside.

Peter dreamed of the bomb for his entire stay in the hospital. Angela knew the look through his eyelids, the rapid eye movement, he was using her power. Yet, Angela couldn't get herself to leave Peter's side, besides he already had her powerwhether she was in the room or not. Peter just didn't understand it all yet.

Yes her presence did make his power stronger within him. Since he was new to his ability, he had to practice at it, build it up, work it out, before he learned his full potential. But it was a potential he already had in him. Peter didn't need his mother to feel her power. And he didn't need his mother to be powerful. Everything Peter needed was already inside of him, Peter just needed to learn that.

Angela arrived at the hospital on the dot every morning at the same time each day, sometimes she fell asleep overnight in her chair. Mother and son dreaming – pre-cogging together, yet none of Angela's dreams showed her Peter's fate.

After a few days, the nurses all knew Angela and she knew them all by name.

"Hello, Mrs. Petrelli," said one of the nurses to Angela as she came in for the day.

"Hello, Janie." Angela smiled her usual smile. She had her purse on one shoulder and a bag filled with books and her shawl over one shoulder.

Angela saw her phone was ringing so she took the call outside the doors of the ICU. She wasn't suppose to have her phone on, but Angela never followed rules.

It was the Haitian. "She keeps asking to see your son."

"I know." She walked closer to the wall to talk in private. "That can't happen." She paused. "He's not in any condition to be anything to anyone right now. You must stop her. She feels connected to him, it's understandable, she just doesn't know why. But they can never meet again. She cannot be found out as part of this family. It is too dangerous. The things they will do to her not even she can recover from and you know that from what you've seen."

"Yes." he paused. "Don't worry. I will protect her."

"I know you will."

Two weeks five hours and fifteen seconds later Peter Petrelli came through his empathic coma quicker then any empath on record. He was a Petrelli, he was a fighter. He was her boy.

It was a normal night. Nathan had sat with her for a while before leaving. Simone, Charles' daughter had come to call. Angela and Nathan had become frustrated with the situation and each other.

"He's not gonna die, Ma!" Nathan spoke over her.

"Well, he will unless I do something about it." And she left the room to talk to the doctors. When she returned Nathan and Simone were gone.

Angela was getting use to sitting in cold hospital rooms at late silent hours of the night. She was using her black and white shawl to keep warm in the cold hospital room. She had lost patience for her book and she had no desire to sleep. What Angela needed was coffee. And when she came back to the room to find Peter awake in his bed, she dropped that coffee where she stood.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I thought I'd lost you**.**" Angela raved on.

He was trying to get out of bed, but he wouldn't listen. He ranted and raved. She had run to him, run to him and try to stop him from leaving, as he tried to leave his bed. She tried to explain to him what had happened. That he had been in a coma for two weeks, he needed to stay in bed. Peter wouldn't listen.

"What ... What are you doing? What are you doing? Get back in bed."

"I need to leave, I need to get away from here." Peter wasn't listening.

"You've been in a ... You've been in a coma for two weeks, okay? Okay. Now, Nathan told me you've been running around like a crazy person, saying you're a hero. Okay? And it nearly got you ... It nearly got you killed." She stroked his head, like she did when he was a child. She took his eyes. "Listen to me. Peter? " She knew she didn't have his attention. "Peter. LISTEN TO ME! You may think that you can save the world, but you can't."

She understood so well that feeling. That feeling. Thinking that you alone can save the world, but it just can't be done. One person cannot save the world and all she wanted to do was save him that pain.

"Okay? Okay?" He had to understand.

"I have to save the world from me. " He sounded so sad and weak to her.

"Just so long as you do it from this bed. Sit." She helped him back into bed as he finally was relenting, but Angela looked at him uneasy, unsure of what he would do next.

Peter babbled on that she was right and he breathed heavy, his sentences weren't sentences, but only words.

"Okay, I'm going to go get a doctor.." And Angela looked at Peter, afraid he would move as she ran for the door.

She slipped on her coffee in the doorway, but held onto the archway for a quick moment, not to lose her footing. She looked back at Peter one last time to be sure he wouldn't move and then, within moments, she had darted down the hallway.

But just as she had feared, when she returned with the doctor, Peter was gone.

"Damn it!" She slapped her hand on the archway, taking it in her grip. "Damn you, Peter," she said softly, her voice had a timbre of fear and sadness in it. "Damn him!" she yelled again in her full voice.

All she wanted to do was kill him for doing this to her. For risking his life, for leaving and putting her again in such distress. For doing this to her. She was looking herself in the face and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Angela spent days looking for Peter in her dreams. She encouraged Nathan to continue with his campaign, to go to Vegas and meet with Linderman. Peter would have wanted him to go on, she told him. Angela knew just what to say to Nathan and Nathan agreed. Still, Angela could not seem to dream of Peter. She seemed to dream of nothing.

At one point, she thought she dreamt of the pigeons on Charles' roof. "What could that mean?" she thought.

She dreamed again of a place where people with powers were hunted and a world was divided. What gave Angela a sense of peace when she woke was that she felt, she knew, that the bomb would stop all of it. That peace was coming soon. There would be fear and pain for awhile, sure, but it would rise up into something beautiful, because her son would lead the way.

Angela was about to leave the house one afternoon when Nathan called her.

"Ma." His voice was low and husky.

"Nathan?" she knew something was going on, it was the sound of his voice. "Did you find Peter?"

"No. No..." he shook it off. "You're not going to believe this? But... I got a call from... Meredith called me today." He was still shocked.

"What?" Angela wasn't too happy.

"She's alive. Meredith is alive." He took a breath. "And so is Claire."

"I'll be right over." Angela hung up the phone and was right over to Nathan's office.

* * *

.

**Angela and Nathan Petrelli**

_Petrelli Campaign Headquarters_

**_Manhattan_**

* * *

Angela tried to explain to Nathan how going to see Claire was a bad idea. And it wasn't for any of the reasons she told him. It had nothing to do with money and everything to do with survival. Everything Angela Petrelli told Nathan was true. And everything she told Nathan came from the same reasons she hated Kaito for letting her see Claire that day the girl was handed off to Noah Bennet.

It was because Angela knew herself so well, and she knew her boy so well. So, again, nothing Angela said was a lie, it was the reasons behind it that were untrue. Angela knew for Nathan's sake, for Claire's sake, she had to be harsh, she had to be cruel, it was the only way. In her world, it was the only way to get the job done.

"We reap what we sow, Nathan," Angela retorted. It would be a sentence her son would throw back in her face, so to speak, while speaking about her sins with Bob Bishop.

Today the phrase referred to Nathan's supposed sins. "You have no one to blame but yourself," she said from her chair as Nathan closed the blinds for privacy.

"I'll go down to Texas and handle it," he said, all business. Nathan was stepping up, being a man.

It was time to work her magic. "So close to the election?" She knew if Peter could make him fear political ruin, this would work just as well. "Don't be ridiculous. If the press gets wind of this, especially on the heels of the Linderman scandal–"

"I cared about Meredith once. I owe her more than a phone call. I owe them both." He was sitting by now and playing with the baseball that used to sit in his father's office, gripping it like a stress ball in his palm. It made him look like Arthur.

"Besides..." he paused. "I'm this girl's father, Ma." He stressed with all concern.

Angela could see she was losing him. "You're a glorified sperm donor. Don't get emotionally attached." Only Nathan's mother could know just how to manipulate him, just where to push it. The two parts of his parents always fighting inside of him for control - the emotional and the practical.

"How can you be so cold? " he asked her.

It wasn't the first or the last time Angela Petrelli would be asked that question and she didn't care. Because Angela understood she had to be cruel to get results, to save lives. It just had to be done, because what Angela knew and what Nathan didn't was that he was being followed by Linderman's men. Linderman didn't even know Angela knew, but of course she did.

It was just another part of their cat-and-mouse game. Linderman and Angela were jockeying for control, to be number one – to be in charge – to have command over Nathan – and each other. And yet they both needed each other and neither one would admit anything but ignorance to the other's agenda, to the other's backstabbing.

If Nathan went anywhere near Claire, Claire would be found out as a Petrelli. And it would all unravel, everything Angela had built up to save Claire from her own fate. That could not happen. Nathan could never see Claire.

"Because I know you, Nathan." She started out, looking in a mirror as if she didn't care."Beneath the gruff exterior, you're a sap. And the moment that young girl looks at you with her sad, little weepy eyes, you're lost – you're finished. You'll start giving, she'll start taking – until there is nothing left." She closed her compact with a smack and looked at Nathan hard. "So prioritize, Nathan. Wire the money to Texas. Focus on the people who really matter." Again, all of it was true.

But Nathan Petrelli was Arthur Petrelli's son and he did not listen. And Nathan Petrelli was Angela Petrelli's son and he did not listen. He was unable to cut his own heart out and he went to Texas, to see Meredith --to give her the money. And he tried not to look at a picture of his daughter, of Claire, but much like his own father, he just couldn't. Angela was right. She did know her boy. She knew Nathan very well. Just not well enough. After all, he still went.

What Angela Petrelli had been right about was this: Nathan was being followed. And when Nathan appeared on Meredith Gordon's doorstep, it was official. Nathan was Claire Bennet's father, the cheerleader was Nathan's daughter. Now Linderman knew it was not just a hunch, but a fact. Angela wouldn't know any of this until it was too late. Angela's house was burning down around her and this time, she had no idea.

* * *

**NEXT CHAPTER: **Angela meets adult Claire.**  
**

* * *


	26. Chapter Twenty Five

**Chapter 25**

_Peter, Angela, Claire, Nathan, Kaito_, the Haitian

* * *

**Angela**

_Manhattan_

* * *

Peter had been missing for days, but all Angela could do was keep to her plans and keep to her activities. There was nothing else to do. She had to keep going on. Things were at hand. And as the day turned into night Angela would pray her next dream would be of Peter. And that in the dream, he would be alive.

Angela entered Saks with the forceful energy of an ambassador or a president. She was a woman on a mission. Angela Petrelli was going shopping.

"Mrs. Petrelli..." The store shopper greeted Angela like they were old friends. They were of course, she had helped to pay for his kid's college education. "What can we show you today? I just got in some lovely sapphire earrings."

"Not today, Robert." She quickly took her gloves off and placed them in her right hand. "I need you to show me some different things today." She smiled.

* * *

Angela had the driver set her bags and the large Gucci suitcase she had purchased in the attic for her. She then asked him to leave.

It had been Nathan's room at one point, but now it just housed a bed, some extra things that had never been thrown out and an old lamp from the living room circa 1976.

She set the suitcase and the bags at the bottom of the closet making sure everything was folded nicely. She then hung up the black coat with the white trim, so it wouldn't get wrinkled before shutting the door and locking it with a padlock.

Claire was coming soon and Angela was ready. Ready for what Arthur had told Kaito, "When the time comes, we have a plan." And the time had come.

* * *

**Kaito & Angela**

_The Deveaux_ _Roof_

* * *

"Angela." Kaito called to her as he entered the roof.

Angela turned to see him. "I heard you were in town..."

"Yes." He paused and he approached her. "I got your message."

"I'm asking you to reconsider–" There was no pause for pleasantries, Angela got right down to business.

"Angela–"

"--Reconsider your choice, Kaito."

"I have made up my mind, Angela."

"That is unfortunate." She paused. "I always thought together, you would be one of the ones by my side when we saved the world. Together."

"I am sorry, Angela. I cannot stop you, as much as this bomb can be stopped, but I cannot be a part of this. I am sorry." Kaito walked away from her.

"You've given up, Kaito. That's very unlike you."

Kaito turned to Angela slowly. "I have not given up. I am too old to fight anymore. It is no longer my turn."

"You're stubborn." She said, almost defiant.

"Look who's talking." He eyed her, slyly.

"You could never think of the future, Kaito. You've spent too much time in the past."

"Perhaps that is a place you should spend more time in, Angela. When we remember and honor the past , we instill the qualities that we want to insure for our futures." He eyed her. "What about your past do you want to use for_ your_ future, Angela?"

Angela looked at him wanting to speak, she understood his views and he understood her, they were just at an impasse - her face gave away nothing and Kaito turned to leave.

"Kaito." She called after him, forcefully, before he could leave. " You should know. Linderman doesn't want you to know. Your son...he is involved in all of this."

"Hiro?" He was shocked. "That can't be. He is not built for this."

Angela took in a deep breath. "Now, you know how I feel." She approached him. "He just left New York on his way to Las Vegas - Linderman's – to deliver a painting. Our children shouldn't have to suffer for our sins, I know this is a sentiment we share, Kaito."

"Thank you for telling me."

Angela nodded her head and Kaito did the same, but before he could exit the roof he turned one last time toward her.

"You can still be an angel, Angela, and not a monster."

Angela's eyes narrowed for a moment and she took a few steps toward Kaito. "Like I told you years ago, Kaito, we are all angels and devils. I have made my decision."

"No matter what happens..."

"I can deal with the consequences."

"Then I leave you to your consequences." And Kaito left Angela alone on the roof.

What Angela didn't know was that she had pushed Kaito a step closer to doing what he thought he couldn't do – stop her plans. Kaito Nakamura, at first, tried to do to his son Hiro what Angela Petrelli had been doing to her son Peter – take him away from his mission. Stop him from putting his life in danger - from trying to "save the world."

The difference between Angela and Kaito was Kaito listened to his son's thoughts, watched him, saw that he was, in fact, a man ready to be a part of what Angela called "The madness." That his son's Hiro's ideas and goals were not fruitless. That he was, in fact, up for the challenge - the family legacy.

It was Hiro's destiny to save the world. It was Hiro's destiny to take over what his father had been unable to finish. And Kaito Nakamura helped his son save the world. He helped his son achieve what he felt was no longer his turn to do. These were all things Angela Petrelli would not learn until it was too late.

* * *

The Haitian didn't have to tell Angela what had happened, she had seen it two weeks prior, she just didn't know when it would occur. She didn't see it all, just flashes. Ted and Matt storming the Bennet home; Claire being shot and spitting up the bullet; the house exploding; Thompson, Claire walking out of the house and healing.

Angela had entrusted to The Haitian that when the event was to happen he should pull Claire out immediately and wait for further instructions. It was no different from the original plan, only this time Angela knew the event was coming soon.

The Haitian told Noah Bennet nothing of Angela Petrelli, just that he would keep Claire safe and that he worked for someone, "...who's instructions supersedes yours in your daughters life."

Noah assumed he meant god. Noah Bennet was wrong.

Noah and the Haitian hatched a plan together to help Claire. The Haitian shot Noah Bennet, erased his memory, and took Claire. It was what had to be done. It was the right thing to do.

When Claire was safely away from danger The Haitian parked by a pay phone off the highway and called Angela. She was waiting for the call.

"Yes." Angela answered the phone in English. When she got a response in French, she changed her language to French.

"Two plane tickets and passports, aliases...will be waiting for you in a package at the airport. You're taking her to Marseilles. Once there you will await my further instructions. I have set up arrangements for logging. It is all takin' care of. A car will meet you in Paris.." And Angela Petrelli hung up the phone and sipped her tea alone.

* * *

**Angela & the Haitian**

* * *

"You lost her?" Angela spoke pointedly to the Haitian over the phone. "How do you lose a child?" She calmed herself down. "I'll have a plane ticket waiting for you in five minutes – you're coming to New York. At least we know where she's going." And Angela hung up the phone with great force.

When in front of Peter's apartment door, Angela scolded the Haitian again, this time his response was:

"She is a very wily girl." He said, walking behind her with his hands in his pockets. "She is after all your granddaughter."

Angela paused and looked at the Haitian. She then rolled her eyes up and nodded her head slightly at him. "Well..."

She fiddled with the keys in her hand and they entered Peter's apartment.

* * *

**Angela, Claire & the Haitian**

_Manhattan_

* * *

When Angela answered the door, she could tell Claire was unsure and scared. And when Claire came into the apartment, and after Angela scolded the Haitian, for losing her, she ended,in French with "At least she's safe now."

Angela looked at her granddaughter with warmth and misfortune, even pride and took a sigh. Here was the girl she had seen grown up, yet it was the first time the two had met. She knew Claire must be confused and uncertain.

"I'm your grandmother, " Angela confessed with affection. "And I've been trying to protect you. But you haven't made that very easy." Her words had a sense of music to them. "Quite stubborn aren't you?" She looked at her granddaughter with a look of love and pride that only a woman can feel when looking at the offspring of one's own child. It showed more in her voice, but she just had to say it. "Just like your father." Just like her - just like a Petrelli.

* * *

_**the Haitian, Claire & Angela**_

_The Petrelli Home_

* * *

The Haitian opened Angela's front door and let Claire enter first.

"You told me you knew _nothing_ of my father?" Claire asked him through gritted teeth.

"I did not lie to you, Claire, I knew nothing of him. Nothing but his name. Your grandmother helped me when I was in need, and now I help you. I did not lie to you. Believe me."

And the Haitian was correct. He didn't even know what Angela's sons looked like, he just knew their names. He had only seen Nathan's face for the first time a few days or weeks before, when he and Bennet had tried to bag- and-tag him. The Haitian saw the name, saw Nathan's face, and knew he was Angela's son. And so he let Nathan fly away and escape the Company's clutches.

Angela told the Haitian that keeping her business away from her real life was paramount and the Haitian agreed. The Haitian's loyalties were God, Angela and Bennet, and in that order. But he always did what he felt was right with him and God - no one could change that in him.

Angela entered the foyer and closed the door behind her. As she spoke she took off her coat and gloves and set them in the hall closet. "I have a room set up for you upstairs. In the attic, it used to be Nathan's room for a short time. It's all we have, right now. It's small. I'm sorry. the other bedrooms are being used. I left some clothes in the closet and a suitcase for tomorrow. We'll leave for Paris in the morning." She could tell Claire really wasn't listening.

Claire walked forward, in awe of the house. It was more luxury than she had ever seen. It was like all those daydreams she had of her biological family living in a fancy penthouse in New York City. This was in fact better. It was better then a penthouse. It was an entire home. A mansion by Claire's standards, not by Angela's - it was a 22 room_ townhouse._

"I left clean linens on the bed..." Angela was all business. She could tell Claire was interested in the house. "Twenty-two rooms. It's been in my husband's family for three generations."

Claire walked in front of the living room doorway and eyed the rows of pictures on the piano, she couldn't help but be drawn toward it.

Angela saw it. Here was a child who didn't know what she was or where she came from. Angela had been so busy with saving the girl's life, she had forgotten all about that. She waved off the Haitian with her head. "Let me have a moment with her, would you?" she asked him in English. The Haitian nodded his head and left them alone.

Angela walked slowly into the room with her fingers clasped within each other in front of her.

She saw Claire was looking at a picture of Peter and Nathan.

"My two boys actually getting along," she quipped. They seemed to be at odds as much as they weren't. They were like Peter and Arthur that way sometimes. Peter just seemed to only remember the loving moments. Angela wished she could do the same in her own life. "Nathan's wedding." She told Claire. "He has two boys of his own now. And that handsome man is Peter." She spoke of Peter with such pride. "But you've already met him now, haven't you?'"

"He saved my life. He forgot to mention we were related." She was still in shock.

"Oh, he didn't know." She said with a little emotion in her voice. " He didn't even know you existed." She said pointedly.

Claire turned to Angela. "But you did?" Claire seemed to ask with wonder, it was something she really wanted to know.

"Since you were a baby." Angela remembered the first time she saw Claire, for real and in her dreams, just a baby, so in need of protection. She looked down at her hands. "Nathan's folly in Texas."

"And you kept me a secret?" Claire was understanding it now and getting on the defensive.

"I cared about you a great deal."

And Angela spoke from the depth of her soul. The girl had to understand, but there was no way Angela would explain it all to her.

"Perhaps not in the traditional sense, oatmeal cookies and school plays. But I did what I could." Angela had been forced to pick the best choice between two possible worse choices, it was all she could do. The situation was never ideal.

"My husband and I made arrangements for you." She looked at Claire and saw Meredith 17 years earlier sitting in her living room, drinking milk, taking the money to go away. "And than that fire happened..." Angela eyes seemed to shift off as if she was remembering the moment.

If it wasn't for that fire, maybe none of this would have happened. "And... Nathan just assumed you were gone, so--" It was unfortunate, but it was just what had to happen, as she saw the image of her son crying in her arms over the death of his daughter

"So you let him." Claire was beginning to get more and more on the defensive.

Angela spoke to her like an adult, just like she would have wanted to be talked to at that age. She talked from her own experience. "It was the right thing to do. You needed to be protected."

"Trust me, I don't need protecting." The girl seemed pretty confident in herself.

"Because you can grow back your bones and spit up bullets."

Oh how little she knew, and how much Angela hoped she never would. Angela's voice got soft. "You have no idea, Claire. The life your abilities would bring you," Angela nodded her head, "you deserve better," she walked toward the couch and shook her fingers at the girl. "And that's why you have to go – get you away, like we planned." Angela sat down on the couch.

Claire needed to get away and out of harm's way before the Company found out where she was. The quicker, the better Angela thought.

Claire pounced on her. "I haven't seen Peter or met my father yet."

"Neither of them is in the position to be anything to you right now."

Claire remembered it was almost word-for-word what the Haitian had said to her about Peter.

Angela took a deep breath and shook her head for a slight moment. "Be sensible." She tried to appeal to the girl.

"By shipping me off to Paris?" Claire would have none of it.

"For now," she assured her with great temperament ,"yess. I'll be taking you there myself," She pushed her hair behind her ear. "You'll have a chance to grow up and develop into someone who can make her own choices. And then if you choose to come back and join this madness... like I once did." She looked at Claire with great sincerity, "at least I will have given you the option." At least the girl had the chance of not becoming her – of living her life.

"So, you're like me?" Claire was shocked.

Angela wouldn't be answering that kind of questioning, not tonight, it was superfluous to the situation at hand. Claire would only need to know what she needed to know; it was for her own benefit.

Angela stood. "I regret a lot of the choices I've made in my life. You're getting the benefit of my experience."

Claire got a cross look on her face, a defiant one and crossed her arms. "Whether I want it or not."

Angela opened her month as if she was about to say something, but stopped herself and took a breath. She took a few steps forward. "You get that mouth from me." She said with a glint in her eyes and smiled at Claire with pride. And she left Claire alone in the living room.

* * *

Claire was walking back to her room after brushing her teeth when she heard her grandmother and the Haitian speaking. She walked slowly down the hall and positioned herself next to the open door of Angela's bedroom, so she cold hear.

"You can report to Hartsdale in the morning. You can stay in Peter's old room. There's a bed that pulls out. They will welcome you with open arms. They need you. And if they need you, they don't care what you're past or future loyalties are, or were as long as you're with them in the present." She smiled, in her way. "It's very important that you return. We need you. I need you. The Company needs you. Tell them nothing." She nodded her head. "Forgiveness is easy when you're needed. Thank you." She took a deep breath

"You should sleep."

"Sleep,'" she scoffed. "Sleep is_ no_t what I need right now, " she grumbled and sat on the side of her bed. She lifted her hand to her head.

"So, your gift -- it is your dreams."

"It is not a gift, what I can do."

"Your dreams, they cause you pain?"

"Yes." She nodded to the Haitian.

"Then tonight, you will sleep without any pain."

Angela looked at him with an unsure look. She nodded her head and lay down on the bed.

"Close your eyes," he told her and she did.

The Haitian noticed Claire was watching and he walked toward the door. "You must give your grandmother peace, child. She is in need of it. Go to bed." And he closed the door.

And for the first time in over thirty years Angela Petrelli slept without dreaming, she slept without pain

Angela woke up the next day feeling refreshed, it was something she almost never had felt in her own lifetime. She put on her favorite black and cream dress because it went well with her complexion. She found as she got older, colors that hadn't looked good on her in her youth, now seemed to thrive against her skin tones.

Still Angela woke up early. It was always the case. She didn't hear Claire around the house and she didn't think she needed to wake her. She woke the Haitian, who had fallen asleep in a chair by her bed, told him he had to go and he left before the sun rose.

All seemed to be going to the new plan. Heidi and the boys would be arriving the next day along from Nathan from Las Vegas. And she and Claire would be on a plane to Paris that night. Finally, things were all going according to plan. Arthur would be proud.

Angela was in kitchen when she heard the door ring. She exited toward the front door, adjusting her watch on her wrist, as she hit her foyer, the morning sun running through the room and hitting the marble floor.

Angela walked through the foyer to discover a stranger at her door. A nice looking Indian man. Angela did not like strangers at her door. Strangers lead to trouble.

She approached the door with a strong sense of caution and control. Who was this man? She paused before walking to the door and opened her iron-railed door, as she had once done to Daniel Linderman almost 30 years before.

"Mrs. Petrelli?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said cordially.

"I'm so sorry, " he said deeply and with heart. "It's... Peter."

This made Angela's insides recoil. If someone was coming around asking about her son at this time, he was asking about her secrets. She was defensive. "What about him?" Perhaps a part of her knew, but didn't want to admit it.

"I found this address in his wallet. I didn't know where else to go. I couldn't leave him." The beautiful Indian man just kept rambling on and Angela wished he'd get to the point. "He's...he's dead." And it seemed to be the worst sentence either of them could hear or utter.

Angela couldn't believe it. She told him it wasn't true. She doesn't know how, but his body ended up in her living room. No, she did know. Angela had asked him, fearful of how Peter had died Angela wanted to keep his body from the authorities, or maybe she just couldn't believe it until she saw it with her own eyes.

The blood from his cold body dripped on her white upholstery - Angela didn't care. She just stared at him. Seeing Peter dead wasn't a new sight to her, it was just the first time she had seen it in person. All her dreams, all the prophesies had finally come true. All her work was for nothing. She had tried. But what was the point? He was dead, he was gone. She hadn't tried hard enough. Perhaps she was right about it all. Not just the big things, but everything was inevitable.

As the Indian man went on and on in her living room, Angela didn't know if she could take it as she held in her emotions. She tried to mourn from the inside, but it was finally just too much - she was going to burst. And Angela would not let this stranger see her cry, when she wouldn't even let people she knew see her so weak.

"Get out of here!" she demanded, her emotions getting the better of her, her face contorting from the pain she was holding in. She gulped and tried to keep it all at bay as it seethed up again through her throat. "Please leave. " She said a little calmer, never taking her eyes off her son's, dead cold face. "Now..." she said sincerely and with a abnormal state of calm.

The man left her side.

It was all over, it was just all over, Peter was gone. She tried to hold it in one last time, but it was too much as the tears of so many years came rushing through her body. And it was painful to cry and it was painful to hold it all in anymore. And the only thing she could do was throw herself on his body and cry her heart out, cry until there weren't any more tears left. She was alone, she could let it all out.

But, of course, Angela wasn't alone. Claire was watching. But after a moment, Claire herself had to be alone and she ran to her room.

Angela Petrelli cried like that for almost twenty minutes.

But Angela knew and learned a long time ago that tears don't change anything and that life has to go on, the living have to be taken care of, she had to go on. That's what Angela Petrelli did, she kept going on. She was a fighter, and if she didn't go on, she felt she might just die. She had to suck it all in and go back to the larger goal. She had to save the world. The plan had to continue.

And so she dried her eyes and cleaned her face and called Nathan. During the entire conversation, she stood a few steps away from Peter's body, she couldn't take her eyes off him.

"There's been an accident. They found Peter." And she hung up the phone.

And when she told Nathan they would have to hide Peter's death, she knew it was cold and she knew Nathan would see it as such, but she didn't care. She had to be the pragmatic one here. She had to make sure the plan went on. She had to worry about the future and not the past. It was just what she felt she had to do. If she didn't move on, she'd crumble.

She didn't seem to care that Claire was upstairs. Plans change all the time, she would make due. Angela, however, didn't expect Claire to enter the living room while Nathan was there, but she let it happen. Perhaps it was time they met. Besides, there was nothing she could do about it and Angela knew how to deal with the situation at hand. To go with the flow. What's done is done and so it is.

"Let the girl have her moment." Angela spoke to Nathan and she left Claire alone with her dead son's body. In the other room, Angela comforted her son for she knew he needed it; they both did.

And when Angela heard Peter awake, no one was more shocked than she was. Nathan walked into the room slowly, the gears running slowly in his head. If his brother could live, what did that mean for Linderman's plan – with him as the President - his mind was turning.

All Angela cared about was Peter. She had never seen a regenerator spring back to life after such a long stay in the land of the dead. How was it possible?

Maybe they had all been right and shooting Adam right through the head would have been the way to kill him. Putting a block between the brain and the connection to the body. All she cared about now was that Peter was alive, for now that was. She still wasn't quite sure how it was all possible, even after all she knew about the a life in the madness.

Peter sat up and Angela approached him slowly, her eyes full of tears. He pushed a tear off Claire's face and then he rose to face his mother. She looked him over in shock before reaching her arm out to him, pulling him close into a huge hug, one as if she was holding on for dear life.

Nathan approached and took Peter by the back of his head and hugged him for so long Peter thought he might break. Nathan started to cry.

Later, when she overheard them talking in Arthur's study, she listened in as she approached slowly. She entered and looked at her own sons. She didn't need to see the future to understand what was going to happen next.

"About what just happened, Nathan and I need to talk to you."

"It's okay..." she spoke with a sense of understanding and sadness. "I know." She looked at them both. "I knew long before either of you did."

And it seemed like for a moment, Angela might finally tell her children the truth. Tell them all about her dreams and the family and their powers. About Arthur and Adam and Linderman, what she had gone through and how it had all been for a good cause - how she was saving them and the world. And there was a part of Angela that wanted to - a part of Angela that wanted to finally open up and tell the truth. But Angela couldn't tell the truth and Angela wouldn't tell the truth. What Angela did do was what she always did - she lied through her teeth, again.

* * *

**Next Chapter: **The bomb and the future is at hand.


	27. Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter 26

_Linderman, Nathan, Peter, Claire, Harry, Carlos, Angela & Adam._

* * *

**Monroe and Petrelli**

_Nov 1, 1977_

* * *

Adam rode in the backseat of Angela's car as they talked, and a drizzle of rain fell outside the car and into the dark Manhattan night.

"You see, Angela," Adam opened the car window just enough for a few rain droplets to roll down the window, before rolling the window closed again by the lever in the side of the car door. "Time is like these raindrops."

Adam watched a stream of water fall like a small river down the car window.

"When we try to stop the stream-" He placed his finger in the middle of the rain drop and watched it stop for a moment before running around his finger and down the window.

"Time just has a funny way of re-healing itself. Gravity always pulls it back on course, it's never enough, it always gets back on course, Angela." He looked at Angela. "It's all just inevitable, no matter what we do.."

"Most of the time, we just make it worse than it was when I saw it."

"Yes. Yes." He nodded his head and took her hand. "Now, don't back away from this now - what am I looking for?" He lightly stroked her hand for comfort.

And Angela Petrelli reached her arm out, which was draped in a brown fur coat, and handed Adam a piece of paper which he clutched in his hand.

"You're looking for strain 138, it's the most powerful strain Victoria has. Second cabinet on the left. Its under lock and key you'll have to break the glass."

"Thank you, Angela. You have just saved the world and your children from being destroyed by it." He slowly let go of her hand. "You've done well. History will remember you for this."

And Angela Petrelli nodded her head feeling proud and scared at the same time.

"I'm just so tired..." Her eyes welled with tears, but she pulled them back, never even messing up her perfect makeup. She nodded her head and her dangle diamond earrings swayed for a moment.

Adam nodded his head back to her sympathetically**.**

* * *

**November 2006**

**

* * *

**The next day was going to be easy, well easy by Angela's standards. Peter's death had waylaid her plans by a day, but it would all be fine. Claire and Angela would leave election night after Nathan's speech.

"When Nathan's wife arrives, I'm going to have to ask you to stay upstairs." Angela told Claire. "Not in the attic, just on the top floor. I'm sorry."

"She won't see me up here?"

"No, dear," Angela said with a little condescension and sadness. "She's in a wheelchair, she can't go up the stairs."

Angela helped Claire pack. She had a little bit of glee in showing Claire everything she had bought her, having a girl around to pass on her fashion sense, but Claire was too distracted with everything that was going on. Angela understood and didn't try and push any kind of a relationship with Claire, she knew that would take time. She also understood if they never had a relationship that was just the way it would have to be - It would be worth saving her life for - her soul.

After Angela had gone though her rules of fashion and helped Claire pack, she told Claire she would be back, she had some things to take care of. Peter said he would watch over Claire.

While she was out, Angela got a call from Linderman.

"Your son is wavering on the plan, you need to speak with him."

"It wasn't my idea to tell him in the first place. He could have gone through with the plan a lot easier if he didn't know, than if he did."

"Not if he'd killed me. Your son's predictable, Angela. I appealed to what I _knew_ would get him back on our side. He's like Arthur, that one. A chip off the old block." His last words seemed almost sarcastic.

"I'll talk to him at his office," she snapped and hung up the phone.

And Angela Petrelli went to see Nathan to explain to him why he needed to understand. To explain to him that he needed to have faith, that important men make impossible decisions everyday. She herself had to make impossible decisions her entire life. The lesser of two evils. Two wrongs. It was always the case. And she knew her son would understand and she just knew how to make him understand, because she knew what he was capable of. She knew what he was capable of, because she was capable of it too.

"Can you be the one we need?" she asked him with such pride, such power. Would he be what they had always said he would be – the hero. The one to lead them all and it would be her son.

It was like she said to Linderman after Arthur died.

"Nathan will do what his parents were never able to do – save the world. I know it is his destiny, my mind is clear. In death, Arthur will give to Nathan what we could not do in life. What has happened cannot be undone. Only what comes next -that is up to us."

"Yes," Linderman smiled at her. "It is all up to us. Us and your boy."

"As long as Peter is not involved in all of this – all will be taken care of."

"Agreed." And they shook hands.

In the present, Angela stared down her boy, looked at Nathan with all-knowing eyes. "Can you believe?" And she knew he did. "That's my boy."

Angela came home pretty proud of herself, she had that high, that power high. She knew all was going to plan which gave her a sense of satisfaction. Her family would be saved and she would be saving the world. Thirty years of it all, of mortgaging her soul, would amount to something.

Angela passed Heidi and the kids getting into the car to attend Nathan's acceptance speech.

"Aren't you coming, Angela?" Heidi asked as Angela passed her and the kids on her way toward the house.

"No, dear, I'll meet you there. I have a few things to take care of." Angela smiled in her own way and ran into the house. She had wasted time going to see Nathan she and Claire had to be ready to go.

"Claire?!" Angela yelled as her front door slammed shut. "Claire!?" She yelled again as she turned up the stairs, but once upstairs she did not find Claire.

"Claire?!" She yelled again as she left the last step back into the foyer. "Peter!?"

Angela entered the living room looking for a sign of anyone.

That was when she found it. It took her sight right away. It caused her to pause and get a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was a black notebook, and for a moment, Angela wondered if it was her past catching up with her. It looked just like the leather- bound notebook she use to keep her dreams in, but as she got closer, she saw it was a sketchbook.

Angela had a very foreboding feeling and she didn't know why, yet she still had the urge to look inside the sketchbook - for she knew Peter had Isaac's power. So, despite her reservations, Angela picked up the book and started to leaf through it.

In the sketchbook Angela saw all the sights she had ever seen herself, her whole life. She knew Peter had drawn them. The devastation, Ted, the future, Nathan and then on the final page she saw it. Peter, Peter as the bomb.

"...It's true.." she shook her head. "No. No. It..." She leafed through the book and found more and more pictures. Being a pre-cog herself, this was the only kind of proof Angela would believe. "It's true." She paused. "Peter!? Claire?!"

"They're not here," came Linderman's voice behind her.

Angela turned around quickly and saw Linderman standing before her. She was still in shock from what she had seen in the sketchbook.

"He's gone off with your granddaughter, Claire, the regenerator." He walked closer. "Don't worry, Angela. Your secret's safe with me." One didn't know if this was the truth or not.

"Peter's the bomb..." She shook the book, still in shock.

"I was afraid to tell you, Angela. I didn't want to break your heart, but it is the way it has always been. It is his destiny."

"Peter was never meant to be the bomb, " she demanded. "Someone has changed history," she challenged him. "Kaito's son ...he's done... something!"

"What's done is done and you know that, Angela." He approached her. " It is Peter's fate."

Angela's face hardened.

"You couldn't stop it, could you, Angela?" he said with his own brand of sincerity. "Just like all the times before."

Angela took a deep breath. He was right, it was all just inevitable, just like the bomb.

"It's happening again, Angela, isn't it? Like Adam? He used your children to get you to bend to his will and it's happening all over again. Don't be selfish, Angela. You need to push aside your feelings for the greater good, like we all have - like I know you have before. Don't let it happen again. We're so close this time."

There was a pause as Angela looked at the sketch of Peter, defeated. "At least I tried..."

Linderman spoke to her with his feigned sincerity and Angela knew it. "And thanks to your granddaughter, Peter will live, Angela. Peter will live. You lied to me, Angela, and that's alright, for now. Tonight is too important."

She held in her emotion like a steal vault. "I understand just as well as you. We need to worry about what is at hand. Peter will live..." she turned from Linderman and crossed the room before looking at him. "There is no turning back – there is no way to stop any of this, no one can... if we can't stop this, no one can. If I could, I would. I tried. I can't."

"And who's to say if we tried and failed again, like all the times before, to stop this that your son wouldn't die in the aftermath. In this scenario he lives, Angela. Peter lives. You try and stop it now and you could make it worse." He walked closer to her with a concerned face. "It is the lesser of two evils, but parents always have to make those kind of decisions."

Angela looked at Linderman. "I"m telling you I understand."

"Good."

"Life is inevitable, it can't be stopped." She shook her head.

And Angela Petrelli went off to deal with the business at hand.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_Manhattan_

* * *

Angela was upset when she was called away from Nathan's great victory. When she was told Linderman was dead, she didn't believe it. She almost barged her way into Linderman's office where she found the bloody remains of the man who had once been her friend and even, at times, her enemy. Still, she felt, in her mind, he had done more good than bad and she had to hold in her emotion at seeing such a sight**.** Mostly, it felt more a pity that such a great man had met such a fate. She thought to herself, "Oh, Daniel" What a sad life he had led - and look how it had ended.

"How could you let this happen!" She scolded his security detail.

"No one got in or out. I promise you." The man dressed in black assured her.

She took a deep gulp and had her face of steal again.

"You know how to take care of this, don't you?" Just as Linderman had once instructed her.

And Angela Petrelli left Linderman's office knowing full well she was now the queen bee of this operation and that suited her fine.

* * *

**Petrelli & Petrelli**

* * *

"Claire ran off with Peter, I can't find her." That was what Angela told Nathan after she informed him that Linderman was dead. After she checked in to be sure he was still on with the plan.

And when Peter called Nathan and told him he needed to talk and they decided to meet in the garage, Angela Petrelli used the opportunity to take Claire back into her own care.

And Angela knew Claire would see her as an evil woman and Angela didn't care. She didn't care if the child hated her until the end of time, and knowing Adam, she guessed the child would. The only thing that Angela Petrelli cared about was that Claire would not be taken into this life, not by her, not by the Company. She would still take the child away from all of this.

"There are things your simply aren't mature enough to understand yet." Angela told Claire.

And when Claire jumped out the window, she wasn't surprised, but again what was done was done and only the future must be looked at. After all, like Peter, she would live.

"Let her go." She told Nathan.

After all the years of Arthur telling her to let Peter go, she was now doing the same thing to Nathan, using the same words. But she had to let Peter go, there was nothing she felt she could do about it. No one could stop the bomb and she couldn't stop Peter from being the bomb. Angela had let go, but it had been by force.

It was time to meet the helicopter on the roof.

* * *

**Harry, Angela, Carlos & Nathan**

_Manhattan_

* * *

Harry was anxiously smoking a cigarette with his two fingers held very close together, as if holding onto the cigarette for dear life. When Nathan and Angela arrived on the roof Harry had been looking over the edge, waiting impatiently, his face about as gray as his now white hair. Smoke seemed to rise around them from the side of the building like they were in the pits of hell.

When Harry heard the roof door open, he turned quickly to see them. "Thank god, finally!" he retorted crassly over the loud sound of the helicopter propellers. The wind was blowing his hair and jacket. He flicked his cigarette to the ground as they approached each other. "Let's get the hell out of this hell hole."

"I know you?" Nathan questioned with leery eyes.

"Harry Fletcher. Haven't seen you since you were about a little bit past my knees. I'm an old friend of your parents." He put out his hand out and the two men shook hands.

"Yeah, I remember you." Nathan was still leery of the man. His demeanor didn't sit well with Nathan, he was way too anxious.

"Congratulations, kid." He looked Nathan over. "I'd say I voted for you, but it doesn't really matter, does it?"

This comment made Nathan feel even more uneasy about the man.

"Let's go!" yelled Carlos from the helicopter before ducking his head back in.

Nathan saw the man's face and remarked, "Wait, I know him too." He was sure of it, but how?

Harry ran toward the helicopter and got in.

"We have to go, Nathan!" Angela yelled over the noise.

Angela walked toward the helicopter as Nathan looked off the roof and past the buildings. The wind from the blades rustled his hair - he looked skywards.

Angela turned to see Nathan wasn't moving. "Nathan, there isn't much time! " she took a few steps closer to him.

Nathan turned toward his mother. "I can't do this, Ma!" he yelled over the sound of the blades.

She couldn't hear him as she got closer, "I can't hear you, Nathan..."

"I can't do this, Ma!"

Angela was now close enough to hear Nathan.

"Claire's right, this will destroy him. I can't leave Peter like this!"

"You're not leaving him, Nathan! You're saving yourself! You're saving the world. You're** prioritizing**."

"I'm not saving the world, Ma. I'm killing it."

"Nathan," she took hold of his arm. "You don't know, you can't possibly understand how long and hard we have tried, you have to understand this is the only way. It's the right thing to do."

"Angela!" urged Harry.

"We're coming!" Angela bellowed half turned toward him, but returned her attention back to Nathan. "Your father would be the first one to tell you, sometimes the ends justify the means. Don't do this, don't back out now. You know you want this." She appealed to the alpha dog male she knew he was. " You can be a hero, Nathan..."

"No, Ma." He pulled from her grip and stepped backwards. "If I came with you, I wouldn't be a hero. I'll be a villain."

Angela got a look of horror on her face. "No," she said softly as she shook her head - she knew where this would lead.

"I have to do this, Ma. I have to do this for Peter."

And Nathan Petrelli flew into the heavens like a shot as his mother took two fast steps and screamed after him.

"Nathan!!"

But he was gone.

"Angela!" Harry yelled from the helicopter. "We gotta get out of here, just let him go."

And as Nathan flew off into the heavens, it was then that it finally dawned on Angela as images of her visions flashed in front of her eyes. That all of them, all of her visions had only come to pass because Angela Petrelli thought she was trying to stop them. Claire was right, life wasn't inevitable - it was Angela who had made it that way.

And the explosion flashed in front of her cornea moments before it actually happened and she watched her two sons fly into the air and explode into nothingness.

"Nooooo!!' she screeched.

"Angela!!" Harry demanded. "It's now or never..."

Angela turned around as if stumbling, her eyes were glazed over, she didn't know what had happened, she couldn't believe it. All that work, all that work and her sons were dead. This wasn't the way it was suppose to happen. Her body felt like it was buzzing and she couldn't feel her fingertips. She found her way near the helicopter some how and Harry put his hand out.

She looked at Harry, her face was white, his hand was there and she backed off.

Harry wasn't too happy, his face contorted, "Angela, god damn it!"

Angela took in a huge breath and shook her head and walked backwards. She shook her head again.

"Damn it!" Harry looked at his watch. "Go!" He slammed his hand on the roof of the helicopter. "Go! Go!" And the helicopter lifted off the roof and into the sky.

Harry leaned back in his seat, hunched over himself. He flipped up his collar and lit another cigarette, his hand shook as he brought it to his mouth, his hand limp and his fingers close to the edge of the cigarette. He looked out over the city as they rose up into the heavens.

Carlos looked at him with a terrible stare.

"Oh, shut up!" And Harry recoiled further into his already arched body.

Angela ran for the door and down the stairs, she could hear the helicopter taking off without her, but she kept on running. She didn't even know why she was running, there was no way she would get there in time, there was no way she could stop it. But she kept on running down the stairwell like a mad woman.

Maybe Kaito was right, maybe something should be left to surprise. Maybe having the power of gods didn't mean you acted like one. By trying to save her sons Angela Petrelli had killed them. But it was all instinct kicking in and before Angela's brain could understand that running was fruitless, her body was responding, her heart.

And then when it finally dawned on her that she had been running, she felt the building shake slightly and the sound of car alarms faintly sounding outside the building - and she knew it was over.

Angela's eyes teared up, almost red, her voice seemed to disappear into a gasp. Her head raised up and her arms reached out in both directions around the silver bar that wrapped around the walls of the stairwell. And Nathan's words trailed in her head, like toxic fumes, from the dream she had on the night before her wedding, "What have you done, Ma?" She heard it again. "What have you done?" Yes, what had she done.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Season two part one


	28. Chapter Twenty Seven

**Chapter 27**

Peter, Angela, Nathan, Bob & 15 year old Peter.

* * *

**1996**

* * *

Fifteen-year-old Peter Petrelli knocked on his big brother Nathan Petrelli's apartment. Peter was such a frequent visitor to the place that he didn't even have to be buzzed up, he just walked in, waved to the doorman before taking the elevator to the top floor.

"Come in!" Nathan bellowed.

The door opened and an adolescent Peter sloshed into the apartment with his backpack over one shoulder and closed the door behind him. Peter was dressed for school in his school blazer, complete with his private school's crest, and a red tie with blue stripes that hung loosely around his neck.

"Great, you're here!" Nathan exclaimed as he saw the boy. Nathan had his shirt half way buttoned and his shoes off. "Do me a favor, make me some eggs would you? I'm running late. Thanks." Nathan disappeared into the bedroom.

Peter threw his backpack onto the kitchen nook-like counter that separated the foyer from Nathan's large kitchen as he made his way in. "You know when you invited me over for breakfast I didn't think you meant to cook it!" Peter hollered at his brother as he opened the refrigerator door looking for the ingredients he needed.

"You wanted to talk, this is when I have time to talk." Nathan raised his voice from the other room.

Finally, Nathan appeared back in his living room from the other side of the hallway, this time with his tie tied and his shoes on. "I'm running late, help me out a little."

Nathan watched through the open kitchen as Peter took a pan out from the cabinet to start the job that was requested of him. Nathan smiled his future politician grin, before disappearing again back into his bedroom.

Peter started to make what he knew was Nathan's favorite, scrambled eggs and onions, buttering the pan and setting a low flame, before he whisked the eggs in a small bowl.

After a moment Nathan appeared back in the hallway that connected the kitchen with the foyer, this time with his jacket on. Peter tossed the ingredients into the pan in front of him.

It was then that Heidi appeared from the hallway into the living room from Nathan's bedroom. She was dressed in nothing but Nathan's t-shirt and a smile - this made Nathan smile from ear-to-ear.

"Hello, handsome," she said wrapping her arms around him, kissing him hard with the eyes of young love, thinking they were alone.

"Hello, yourself." Nathan said soft and obviously full of ideas not appropriate under the watchful eye of his fifteen-year-old brother.

"I left my robe at home, I hope you don't mind."

"Hi, Heidi," Peter spoke in her direction in an almost sing-songy way.

"Peter!?" Heidi was surprised, she gave Nathan a cross look, lucky she was being blocked by Nathan.

"Oh, yeah, Peter's here." Nathan told her with his dry wit.

"Nathan!" Heidi scampered off into Nathan's bed room without another word.

Peter tilted his head to take a look as Nathan turned around with a huge grin. "Hey, eyes on your eggs, buddy." Nathan scolded, but he really found it funny.

Nathan took his briefcase from the doorway and set it on his desk, throwing in a few papers before closing it and bringing it into the kitchen. Nathan walked behind Peter and saw what he was making. "What no bacon?" He smirked.

Peter gave him a look and Nathan lightly smacked the top of Peter's head sending his hand through his little brother's hair.

"Hey!" Peter let out.

Nathan couldn't help but laugh. He set his briefcase on the counter top that separated the kitchen and the foyer and went for a cup of coffee behind Peter.

"Nathan!" Heidi ran into the living room, now dressed and holding her shoes. "I'm late, have you seen my other earring, oh, never mind, I'll get it later—" she grabbed her purse and made her way into the foyer catching the two Petrelli brothers in the kitchen. "Hi, Peter," she said, like she was trying to pretend what had happened hadn't.

"Hey, Heidi." Peter smiled sheepishly as he continued to scramble the eggs.

"How's school?" She took her left earring out of her ear and put it in her pocket.

"It's alright." Peter looked at Heidi while stirring the eyes in the pan.

Heidi put her shoes on. "Good." She sounded a little winded.

"Pete's making breakfast. Pete make her breakfast." Nathan smirked and gripped Peter's shoulder in a loving gesture.

"No, I'll pick up something on the way, I have to get—" she grabbed her purse and looked around as if she might be forgetting something, "...going..."

Nathan made his way into the foyer and had his arms around her as fast as he could. "I'll see you tonight?"

"Of course." She kissed him. "But now I have to go. " She let go of Nathan's embrace and looked toward Peter, "Bye, Peter, I'll see you Sunday." She went for her coat.

Nathan and Peter both looked at each other and at the same time said ominously, "Family dinner!"

"Bye." And Heidi had her coat and was out the door. She left Nathan for a moment with a huge grin on his face, he was after all in love.

After a moment Nathan sat down on a stool in the foyer, facing the kitchen counter as Peter set a plate for him and spooned some of the eggs from the pan onto Nathan's plate, before setting his own place across from Nathan. Peter then sat down on a stool in front of his own plate.

"What's on your mind, kid?" Nathan asked, taking a swig of his coffee and setting it down on the counter next to him.

Peter handed Nathan a fork and a napkin. "I wanted to talk to you about Mom."

Nathan threw his napkin on his lap. "Ma? What? Is she sick?" Nathan took a forkful of eggs into his month..

"No.." Peter said, a little timid. "I mean I don't think…" He paused as if he was looking for the words. "It's just lately, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night and I – I just find her walking the halls, up at all hours." He paused and looked at Nathan. "Did she do that when you lived at the house?"

"You know Ma's never been much of a sleeper." Nathan separated a sliver of his eggs from the plate to his fork on its way to his mouth.

"I know –but there's more–for the last two weeks, almost every other night – I hear her screaming, just screaming in the middle of the night."

Nathan got a serious look in his eye and he separated another mouthful of eggs from his plate to his fork, slowly, as if not wanting to give away that it all sounded very familiar. "What does Pop say?"

"He says it's nothing, just dreams, but I mean –" Peter pulled a book out from his backpack. "I went to the library and I found this book and it says it could be something called... "

"Night terrors." Nathan finished Peter's sentence before he could.

Peter looked at Nathan dumbfounded. "You've heard of it?"

"Yeah." Nathan said it as if the subject made him uncomfortable, yet he was very serious. "Ma use to have them… when I was a kid." The subject was just reminding Nathan of all the bad parts of his childhood, the scary ones.

"What happened?"

"They went away." Nathan shut the book in front of Peter with a loud crack.

"It didn't worry you?"

Nathan seemed exasperated. "Pete, I was eight, I barely remember the whole thing. Don't worry, it's nothing to worry about." He ate another bite of food.

"No, wait," Peter was so earnest. "I also found this medical book..." Peter took another book out of his backpack and started looking for the page. "It says night terrors stem from a traumatic event in someone's life."

"Traumatic event? What at the yearly half-price sale at Bergoffs?"

"Why aren't you taking me seriously?" Peter was more than agitated.

"You're really worried about this, aren't you?

"She's our mother."

"And she can take care of herself." He took the book, closed it, and put it in Peter's backpack in one fast gesture. Nathan caught sight of his brother's face and saw the concerned look on it. "Listen, if anything was really wrong, Pop would tell me." Peter didn't look so convinced. "They're only dreams, dreams can't hurt her, they can't hurt you. They're just dreams, Peter. Stop worrying about someone else's problems, it'll only get you in trouble."

"This doesn't concern you?" He was shocked Nathan would act this way about their mother.

"They went away! They went away once, they'll go away again. You need to be worrying about more important things – like your school work. Come on." Nathan put the second book back in Peter's backpack and zipped it closed. "Get your things together - I'll give you a lift to school." Nathan got up and wiped his mouth with a napkin before throwing it on the counter top. "Come on," He instructed. "Get a move on." Nathan looked back at his brother who hadn't moved from his spot.

Peter, looking as if the air was let out of him, exited the kitchen with his head lowered. "I'll take the subway."

"The subway? No. I'm giving you a ride." Nathan took Peter's backpack off the counter and walked toward him.

"I like taking the subway." Peter said almost defiant.

"Pete." He shoved the backpack into Peter's chest. "No one likes taking the subway." Nathan walked away from Peter as Peter took his backpack and put it on his shoulder. "Come on. If you're late for school, Ma 'll kill me." Nathan took his briefcase off the counter top and walked toward the door and undid the latches. He grabbed his keys off a small table near the door and threw them in his pocket.

By now, Peter was standing next to his brother and Nathan saw the sadness in his brother's eyes. "Look at you, you are really worried about this, aren't you?"

Peter was fed up with his brother's lack of participating in the conversation. "She's our mother, Nathan, how can I not!"

"She's gonna be fine, Pete, Listen, if it makes you feel better, I'll talk to Pop – you're just too sensitive, Pete"

"She's in pain, I want to help her."

" Dreams can't hurt anybody, Pete - believe me."

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

Roosevelt Hospital, Manhattan

**2006**

* * *

Angela Petrelli's life had turned out to be just one giant misunderstanding. Her husband, Adam, Kaito, the group – everything. Almost all of her life she had seen her sons go down in flames and her only mistake was that she had misunderstood all of it. Angela had built the house she thought was her own life... and Angela Petrelli burned her own house down. Sent her sons to their death when she thought she was selling her soul to save them. Sent Claire to uncertain doom when all she was trying to do was protect her from it.

Angela hadn't stopped anything, Angela had caused it, caused it all. It was all her fault, yet still in her deluded denial she told herself that if only Nathan had followed her plan none of this would have happened, because otherwise the truth would suffocate her - and the truth was the truth had been a stranger to Angela Petrelli for so many years, would she even know what it looked like if she saw it face-to-face? Would she even recognize it? The world hadn't made Angela's life a living hell, she had.

Angela sat in the hospital waiting room the next day. Nathan was in a coma. She was waiting for news from the doctors. Her face was red from tears and her body felt achy with fatigue. She always swallowed hard when she talked to the doctors, nodding her head a lot and not really speaking. She sat there, alone, waiting, just like she always did. Waiting was her hobby now. Heidi and the children were still on their way back to the city.

Bob Bishop saw Angela sitting alone in the hospital waiting room and it looked as if he felt a small sliver of glee at seeing the queen deposed, but one wasn't sure - it was just a good guess.

"Angela?" He spoke with his feigned concern. He sat in the chair in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped.

"I'm here to help, Angela. I'm here to clean up the mess you've made. Yours and Linderman's mess." He leaned in. "How did you think your son got to the hospital?"

"Peter. It's the only way."

"No. No," he repeated. "Peter exploded over the Hudson River, thanks to you."

Angela gritted her teeth, looked around and leaned in.

"Uh, ahh, Angela." He shifted his head to the side. "I wouldn't say or do anything you're going to regret. Because I am here to help you. I'm here to help the Company recover from the blunder you, Linderman and your husband have brought onto this Company... and now – your children."

"Get out of here!" she snarled at him.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, for both our sakes. All traces of the incident last night have been eradicated**.** The authorities are under the impression, thanks to us, that Nathan and Peter were involved in a helicopter accident over the Hudson River – on their way to Nantucket... after Nathan's big congressional win. You know, I don't think I congratulated you on that. That you did right. In a few days, Daniel Linderman will suffer a fatal heart attack, it will be in all the papers, we will sell off the art collection and do away with the casinos. As we speak, the coast guard is looking for the body of your missing son on the bedrock floor. As as far as the public will know, Nathan Petrelli was unable to take on his duties for _personal_ reasons."

"No, No." She gulped and gritted her teeth. "Peter canregenerate, he'll survive, he was supposed to survive."

"Well, yes." Bob condescendingly nodded his head. "That was true, yes. Yes. Right. But that was when Peter was meant to explode in Kirby Plaza, not over a large body of water. Nathan changed history, Angela."

"Kirby Plaza?" Angela was shocked. "This all... this all happened at Kirby Plaza?"

"Yeah..." he laughed. "Isn't that a real kick in the pants." Kirby Plaza was, after all, the first headquarters of the Company and where the founders had their offices.

Angela's body felt like burnt quicksand.

Bob continued. "Empaths have a very short shelf life, Angela. We have no idea what would happen to Peter on the ocean floor. Perhaps it will teach us a way to kill Adam. The coast guard is looking for him." He paused. "But then we all know he's a little different than Adam, isn't he? Who knows if he shares all of Adam's fringe benefits."

Angela let out a cry and held it back inside. "Adam..." she croaked, before pulling her emotions back in. She grabbed out toward Bob's arm in a messy way and he pulled away before she could completely grab hold of him.

"No, Angela..." he said slowly.

"For Nathan–"

"Noo," he tried to stop her from talking. He leaned in for an even softer whisper. "We both know that is not an option for Nathan. Your son's life is not more important than the rest of the world, Angela. If we try again to draw blood from Adam and he escapes, that puts the world at risk. What we do at the Company is keep dangerous people off the street, and I know you know that. This is not an option. Adam is not an option. And thanks to Arthur..." he eyed her. "Other options have gone out the window, haven't they, Angela?"

He eyed her again, only more pointedly.

"Better safe now, than sorry later." He stood. "But I assure you, with me in charge of the Company now...well..." He buttoned his jacket and smiled at her. "I can assure you there will be no more incidents like this ever again. You failed Angela. And now a new _family_ is taking over the plantation. Your reign has ended. And now I can help us do the good work this Company has always done. Always with your help, of course, Angela. But you have to know that this time you did the wrong thing. And Nathan will have to live with the scars of your mistake. Now, unless you want to tell me where your granddaughter is–"

"I don't know–" she retorted.

"I see. So Nathan's fate is fixed."

"And if I did know." She raised her eyebrows. "I wouldn't tell you,' she said soft and slow.

"I am sorry for what has happened to Nathan – it is a..." he looked for the word. "A tragedy..." Bob Bishop was a smug son of a bitch.

"Mrs. Petrelli..." A nurse stood behind Bob.

"Yes." Angela eyed Bob with a deadly glare.

Bob walked away and when the doctors told Angela of Nathan's condition, she almost lost her footing and the doctor had to take her arm. She assured him she would be alright. She asked to see Nathan. He wasn't awake yet, but she waited by his bedside until that night when he opened his eyes.

Angela tried to hold in her emotion so not to scare Nathan, but it was so hard for her to look at him without losing control of her emotions, because he was her son - and she had done this to him. She, his mother, had not stopped him from burning. She again told herself, if he had just followed, the plan none of this would have happened. She was up to her eyeballs in denial, still too hurt to think of anything except what was at hand - she was covering her own scars.

And Nathan saw the look in his mother's eyes. That same look he saw in her eyes when his father had killed himself - the look of devastation and fear, it was then that Nathan knew he was in trouble.

But then Nathan Petrelli had never thought he would live. Nathan Petrelli thought he was flying into the face of danger and certain death. He never thought he would have survived. And he did. And from what his mother told him, Peter hadn't. He didn't believe it, it wasn't true.

Angela tried to stop him from seeing himself in the mirror, her mother's instinct kicking in.

"No. No, no, no," she tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen.

And when Nathan saw himself in the mirror, he couldn't believe it, it didn't seem real. He looked like a monster. He couldn't see out of one eye and he felt to himself as though he had gotten off scott-free compared to Peter. Peter was meant to be here, not him, on this earth, walking and talking. And Nathan felt survivors guilt and all thing things they had labeled Angela's husband when he had come back from the war, only this time it was all almost true.

Angela spent everyday at the hospital. So much so Heidi felt crowded. It was Angela who brought in sweaters and pajamas for Nathan to wear - carefully finding the certain fabrics that didn't bother his charred skin. Fresh flowers everyday, just like she had in the house. Angela was the one who brought in the pictures of Nathan and his kids and Nathan and Peter, to display on the set of drawers in front of his bed. It did not go unnoticed that Heidi was not in any of the pictures.

Angela's goal that one night in the hallway wasn't to drive Heidi away from Nathan, but she didn't shed a tear when after many weeks she did. Nathan was better off with her taking care of him anyway, she told herself.

What was most important to Angela Petrelli was keeping her secrets. And that meant from anyone. No one could know what her family could do, not even Heidi. No one could know about the Company or the bomb or her dead son Peter's abilities. Angela's secrets were her number one loyalty, because her secrets weren't just hers, they now made the world go round. Her secrets protected more than just her family.

And so out came what was now the old stand by, calling Nathan what Angela had called Peter and what Arthur had called Angela and what the army had called Arthur. Nathan was crazy and Heidi needed to keep that secret for his, "dignity."

And it didn't matter that her son could be lying on his deathbed and that she had just driven away his wife and children. But that was never the intention. She had to be sure Heidi would not believe Nathan at any cost. That she would not tell anyone his tales. Angela had told Nathan not to tell their secrets, but he was furious at her and he wouldn't listen. He didn't know that telling one's secrets gets one killed.

And who could blame Heidi. Nathan was angry all the time, moody and distant. Angela stood by and took it, but Heidi was beginning to break from it - from the pressure - from the utter sadness of seeing her loving husband not only hurt emotionally and physically, but also in her own eyes slowly going insane. When Heidi heard Monty repeating back to her what she now understood as Nathan's delusions, she made what to most women would be an unthinkable decision - Heidi Petrelli left her husband while he was still in the hospital.

"What if he told the children they could fly? What if they tried to jump off the roof?" she cried to her father on the phone.

The next day Heidi was on a train with the kids to Washington. She enrolled the kids and school and stayed with her parents.

"I'm sorry, Nathan." She had told him. "I know you don't understand this now, but you're sick and I have to think of our children first." Her eyes were filled with tears and they started to run down her cheeks. "We just can't be near you right now." As far as Heidi was concerned, the accident and the death of his brother had driven her husband mad.

Then Nathan Petrelli did a lot of what he did in the last months, he cried, for his life was now nothing but dust

And when after months of sitting at her son's bed Angela walked into his hospital room to find him fully healed, she was shocked, but it was nothing she hadn't seen before. Nathan wasn't shocked, well maybe at first, but now all he wanted was answers.

"How did this happen, Ma?"

"I don't know..." she said softly. "I don't know." She couldn't stop staring at him.

"Peter was here."

"Peter is dead, Nathan." Her voice filled with emotion.

"No. No, MA!' He walked over to the rows of pictures. "Look. The picture... it's gone."

"Calm down, Nathan. You're ranting."

"Do you see it? It's the picture... of me and Peter. Who would take that?"

"I don't know."

He was mad with rage. "Stop saying that – you do know! You know everything! Someone healed me. Just like Linderman healed Heidi, that's what happened isn't it?!" He looked so much like Arthur in his rage.

Angela nodded her head, for it was the only answer that could be reached.

"But Linderman was dead last I checked," his words were cutting and harsh. He had every reason to be upset.

"Peter can't heal the sick," she blurted out. "You don't think I don't want him-- to believe he's alive. But I've mourned for him and I have to let it go, Nathan. I can't hold out any more hope." It was a rare moment of honesty between mother and son.

"It doesn't help that you killed him, Ma."

"_I _didn't kill him—"and then she stopped her words because she knew how it sounded.

"Thanks. Ma. That one was a classic, really."

"I didn't mean, you –"

"I know what you meant–" And Nathan left the room.

"Nathan!" She called out after him. "Nathan!" She ran down a hallway and saw an open stairwell. She followed him up to the roof, but it was too late. Nathan Petrelli was gone.

And Angela stood on the roof alone again as the wind blew her hair and skirt.

She told the nurses she was moving Nathan to some rehab facility in upstate New York. Then without her knowledge Bob sent the Haitian to erase all their memories of Nathan and his injuries - no witness, no suspicion.

"I assure you, Angela, I have no idea how your son was healed," Bob told her, "But when I do, you'll be the first one I tell."

He also failed to tell her Adam had escaped. He failed to tell any of the founders. It was his first major mistake. Second, if you count putting Peter in a cell next to Adam, but Bob was about to run the Company into the ground. He was never meant to lead. Of course, one wasn't sure if he was not telling to cover his tracks or to be the last one standing.

Angela Petrelli tried to get on with the rest of her life and part of her wanted to believe that Peter was alive, as much as she knew the hope of it might kill her. For two weeks, she slept non-stop trying to find Peter in her dreams.

The housekeeper found bottles and bottles of empty sleeping pill containers, from three separate doctors. She called Nathan's cell phone, concerned.

"I'm worried about your mother," she told him.

Nathan hung up the phone. He threw the phone in the East River and started using Peter's phone - he had been living in his apartment since he had left the hospital. And when Claire called on Peter's phone - still holding out hope that Peter was alive, he talked to her, but not for long. He asked her not to call again, but she did anyway - she felt connected to him and maybe in a way, through her father, she still felt connected to Peter. She wanted what they all wanted - answers - but Nathan felt he was the last person to give them - his own questions were already crushing him - he started drinking to take away the pain - to make the questions stop.

After two weeks of sleeping twelve hours a day, Angela Petrelli knew she just had to get on with her life. She had to let Peter go. Or the grief would crush her. And she just wouldn't let that happen. She had to press on. She decided to clean out Peter's apartment. She knew she would run into Nathan and she didn't care.

"It's time to move on, Nathan. He's dead."

Nathan wouldn't believe it, they fought over a picture of her two boys and it crashed to the ground.

"You're evil, Ma." He told her, telling her to leave.

Angela's pride and anger at her son, at what had happened, on being blamed, seethed inside of her and she pushed his hand away and left Peter's apartment, slamming the door in the process. The problem was, of course, everything Nathan was saying was true, and that's what made Angela so furious at him. After all she had done it all for him, for the world.

Her mother was right, Angela Petrelli's sins had all come back to haunt her. And when Angela Petrelli got the death card, part of her was scared and concerned, but the other part of her welcomed it.

She welcomed death to come and punish her for her sins, not that life hadn't already done that for her. It also didn't mean she didn't fight to live as much as she didn't think she deserved to - for survival is an all too human trait and, if anything, all Angela Petrelli had been her entire life was all too human.

* * *

**NEXT CHAPTER**: The end. But with every end is a new beginning.


	29. Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter 28

_Includes a cut scene from Four Months Later between Nathan and Angela_

Characters: Angela, Kaito, Peter, Nathan & Claire

* * *

There had been only three people in Angela Petrelli's life that she had been able to keep secrets with. Her husband, Charles Deveaux and Kaito Nakamura. She had started out in this life at such a young age, all Angela knew anymore were secrets. And now facing her life with over thirty years of experience in it, all she seemed to know these days was death. Arthur, Charles and now her son, Peter, even Nathan was dead to her, by his account only not hers.

So, when Kaito called her and told her he had received a death card, she wasn't sure if she could handle it. But she did, she always did.

"I got one too," she told him.

"Meet me on the roof."

And she knew just where he meant.

When the boy left their side, Angela mustered up all her strength as she approached him, always still looking regal. "Let me see it." Her voice had a timbre in it as if softly she wanted to say "it just can't be true."

"Someone's playing a trick," she told him and she believed it, at the moment.

Kaito felt otherwise. And when he railed on about redemption and saving his soul -- the regrets of their evil deeds, Angela Petrelli understood. But when he accused her of doing nothing for her Peter, after everything he knew about her, she slapped him, hard, across the face. How dare he. This, should could not take.

"Angela," he called her name, stopping her from leaving. "I am leaving for Japan tonight. I suggest you disappear as well."

She appreciated that after all these years, he still cared for her, but she was too angry to say anything back, too bull-headed and in denial, to in a fury to acknowledge it . For deep down inside, Angela still blamed herself for Peter's death. She hadn't just slapped Kaito because of how hard he knew she had worked, but because she couldn't bear to hear the truth.

Kaito felt they were all in grave danger, but Angela didn't listen, or maybe she did. It was only after she left Kaito's sight that it hit her - that Angela Petrelli feared for her life. Or maybe the whole thing had been a front and she always knew the threat to be true?

After all, when she found her death card outside Peter's apartment, her heart raced, her breath was labored and her adrenaline seemed to rise. No one Angela ever knew who got such a card, lived to tell about it.

This time Angela couldn't rely on herself. Now Angela had no one to turn to, no one to save her - no one to love anymore. In her desperation, Angela went to the only person somewhat left in her life, she went to see Nathan. After all, no matter what, she was his mother.

Only this time Angela's old tactics didn't work anymore, for Nathan was wise to them. Angela was now the pre-cog who cried wolf and it was nothing she hadn't created and nothing she hadn't brought upon herself.

"I'm in trouble." Angela held in all her emotions not to break in front of her son, a man who only hours before had called her "evil" right to her face.

"Trouble? Trouble how?" Nathan seemed to only care for the drink in front of him.

"It's complicated... suffice it to say, I'm afraid for my life..." Nathan still cared as much as he did in Peter's apartment that afternoon, maybe even less. "Things that your father and I did, people we were involved with. And now our past is coming back to haunt us." That was an understatement.

"Yeah, well, the past has a way of doing that, Ma." He looked at her coldly and downed the drink in his hand.

"Nathan, please, I am so serious." She didn't like his attitude one bit

And then he seemed to fade off as he went on about the past, sadly, sentimentally, about Peter, the bottles of Arthur's scotch Nathan use to steal as a teen, his accident with Heidi - all things that couldn't be changed. But Angela knew from experience looking at the past would do nothing but crush her son deeper into the bottle he had already climbed into.

She knew how crushing the past can be and it was the pushing of it away that had created her entire personality.

"It's the past, Nathan." She said forcefully. "You can't let it destroy you." she told him and then slowly crossed to his other side. And then, again, Angela chose the wrong tactic as her voice, cold and calculated, breathed the words. "And if you're looking for redemption, I'm asking you as your mother. Save me."

And he grabbed her by the shoulders, leaned his head against hers and it felt so good, oh how she missed her boys - how she missed human contact - a human touch. But much like Arthur, there was more to a simple touch. And just like Angela, there was a different motive behind his actions, as Nathan Petrelli spoke his most biting blow yet.

"We're Petrellis, Ma. None of us deserve to be saved..."

And she never broke away from anyone with such rage and anger, her eyes ablaze, and in a moment. she was gone. The hell with him, she thought. She'd leave him to his misery and a past that wouldn't take her down with him - and she didn't cry, she just packed - she was too angry to cry.

And when she opened the paper the next day and saw what had happened, that Kaito was dead, she threw the paper down and never picked it up, and cried alone in her room. Alone like she always did, trying at first not to lose it completely, covering her mouth so her cries were silent, but just like when Arthur died and Peter died, it overtook her.

Angela cried because there was nothing she could have done about it, and because she loved him once. Because her life was becoming all too overwhelming. It was all coming to a head and Kaito seemed to be a breaking point.

And then when there were no more tears to shed, Angela Petrelli did what she always did. She dried her face, put the mask back on and faced the world.

When the police came to take her away for questioning, Angela Petrelli asked them to wait a moment while she got her purse. As she did Angela made sure to leave the door half ajar, so the officers wouldn't see her throw her passport in a foyer drawer.

"I'm ready now, " she told the officers and she freely followed them.

Angela wondered if she hadn't spent so much time packing, perhaps she would have missed the officers completely. But a woman of her means didn't go anywhere without at least two coats and a trunk full of shoes and jewelry.

A few hours later, Angela was back to very familiar territory these last months. A police station. Getting ready to be interrogated by a Parkman, how things never change, she thought to herself. And then Parkman and Fuller entered the room.

* * *

**Angela Petrelli**

_Manhattan_

_An Hour Later_

* * *

She all of a sudden had this uncontrollable feeling of fear. It was rare for Angela. Paranoia filled her being, as she sat alone in the interrogation room. She waited for Nathan to come and pick her up, just as he had done almost a year before, under completely different circumstances. She didn't think he would even come, but she had them call him because as her son told officer Parkman, "She has no one else." And it was the god's honest truth.

It seemed Maury Parkman's son was also a mind manipulator, a mind reader to start, with more potential than he himself seemed to know. That was good. Maybe it was best some people didn't know what they were capable of, at least that was good for Angela. She seemed almost proud, how she was able to scare him off with only her mind.

"Get out of my head!" And how good that felt.

Yes, you didn't mess with Angela Petrelli. She was the one that held the control. For control is knowledge and Angela had that in spades.

What she didn't know was while she thought of one Parkman, Angela was already being visited by another Parkman . The panic and fear that filled her at the moment was all being controlled by another person and not Angela Petrelli — Maury Parkman had entered the building.

Maury was out for revenge for not just himself, but for the revenge of another. Kaito was right ; they were in grave danger, and now, especially Angela, considering how Maury felt about her. But it was Maury's regard for Angela that saved her life. He took too much joy in the idea of torturing her before planning on having her kill herself. And that was his downfall and that was what saved Angela Petrelli's life. He liked it too much. Maury took his time.

She had locked the door first from the inside. All Maury's doing. Angela thought she was locking someone out, but she was locking herself in.

"Mom," Angela heard Peter's voice behind her.

"Peter?" she turned toward the sound in shock and dismay, her voice dripped with care. "Is that really you?"

"You killed me, Mom." He looked at her, his face was bloody and he appeared just like he had looked in her living room, when the Indian man had brought his body to her.

"No... No.." She shook her head and spoke in a soft rasp. "You're not real. This isn't real. It's a dream? Isn't it? I.. I.." She shook her head and her face looked vulnerable with fear.

"How can you live with yourself, Mom." He walked toward her with evil eyes.

"No. No. I didn't kill you. I didn't kill you. I tried to save you! I tried to save you. All of you." She cried in despair. And all Angela was arguing with was her own subconscious. "Everything I did. Everything I did – I did for you..." Her eyes were wet and her face pale. "No. No.." She sucked in her strength. "This can't be real. Can it? No. No. I know better than this. I do. This isn't real."

"Is it?" And Peter disappeared. The lights went off in the entire building, or did they?

And Angela Petrelli started screaming. She thought she was being attacked, attacked by something she couldn't see, slashed and knocked about. Perhaps literally scaring the life out of her. What Angela Petrelli had no idea about was that she was doing it to herself. She was doing what she had been doing for years, slowly killing herself when she thought she was defending herself. And then it all stopped.

Matt Parkman broke the glass in the interrogation room with a chair and the spell was broken. It was then that Angela knew it was Maury, for only another person with Maury's abilities could stop him, other than the Haitian. Knowing it was Maury made her even more fearful.

And as her son hugged her and consoled her, he told her it would be alright. And as blood marks appeared on her skin, Angela Petrelli's eyes darted around the room waiting for it all to start again, fearful her attacker was still around.

Nathan had never seen his mother fear anything that much. It was a look in her eyes he had never seen. It was pure fear because it was a place Angela Petrelli had been before. So many years ago. The circumstances were just different.

"Who did this to you, Mrs. Petrelli?" Matt asked her and he pried her death card from her clenched fist. She had no idea how it had gotten there, or even how she had separated herself from her jacket - the last she remembered, the death card had been in her purse.

When Angela got a call in the hospital from her grandsons, she knew it was Nathan's doing, and maybe there was hope for them yet. But Angela would have no more of her sons involved in her business. The stakes were higher now. Maury's attack had knocked some sense into her - going to Nathan for help was stupid on her part, she knew that now.

And Angela knew that Maury attacking her in public, of her surviving, the self-made marks on her face and body, everything would arouse suspicion. And Angela Petrelli knew after all the sacrifices she had made for her secrets, this time she would have to sacrifice herself. The few for the many. Too many people would lose if Angela's secrets were revealed - if people found out what people like her could do. This time, Angela was the collateral damage.

The world, her family and anyone else with an ability would be at risk – if the world found out and Angela knew that couldn't happen. It would be the demise of so much - of not just people like her, but the world - she had seen that future and it was never pretty. Of all of her secrets, Angela Petrelli knew those were secrets that were even bigger than her.

So, Angela Petrelli sacrificed the few for the many. She wasn't looking to be a martyr, it was just the right thing to do. Thirty years of training in the cause didn't even make her flinch at the idea - of going to jail for her secrets.

She needed to stop the investigation. It needed to end with her. And so Angela Petrelli confessed to killing Kaito Nakamura.

"I did it. I killed Kaito Nakamura." What horrible irony, she thought. She was sure this would give Maury more satisfaction than her own death.

She begged Matt Parkman in her head. She begged him for her family, for their secrets, for himself, for others. He had no idea what damage it could do. "Let it go." She was begging for Nathan's life. "Let it go." She was begging for the future.

And when Nathan told her he knew she couldn't have killed Kaito Nakamura, she told him, defeated. "I've done so many bad things in my life. It really doesn't matter what crime I confess to." And she believed it with her whole heart. And in a sense she was punishing herself for her own sins, for the greatest sin of all she felt – for killing Peter.

And she begged Nathan, from her own experience, to get himself cleaned up, to get his family back. After all, it had been her own fault that Heidi had left. Angela was trying to make amends for the sins she knew she had committed in the name of her family.

"Don't let your children hate you, not if you can help it." And that line made her voice quiver, for it was the truth.

She had let her children hate her and it had been the wrong choice, she wouldn't allow her only remaining son to follow in her footsteps. It was always her main goal, Angela just saw her life a little clearer now. Her regrets were more defined and larger a list

And she begged her son not to dig deeper, not to look for redemption. She had been so wrong. It was all too real now and she knew there was real danger at hand, it was all different now - Maury was around.

"...You'll just get yourself killed. And I can't bear to lose another son." Her eyes were full of tears and pain.

And when Nathan hugged her, she hugged him for dear life, because Angela Petrelli needed it. And because she knew it would be for the last time.

That night in her jail cell, after Angela painfully gave up her engagement ring to the guards, her last vestige of the outside world, she sat in the dark and hoped Maury would come and put her out of her misery, but she knew he wouldn't. For he was right, her own present was far more of a nightmare then anything Maury could show her.

Her friends were dead, her life was a mess, her future unknown. Angela Petrelli had the final nail hammered into her coffin, but she was still breathing - that was the cruelest part of all.

That night Angela had a dream that Adam had killed Harry - she now knew what was going on. Adam had escaped and he had killed Kaito. And worse of all, Adam was working with Maury. Adam's brain had always been too evolved to be manipulated by Maury, and without his power **,** Maury was easy prey to Adam.

"But once I'm done with Maury..." she saw Adam tell Harry. "I'll just kill him, too." He always loved to gloat.

For it didn't matter how valuable Maury was, because Adam Monroe cared more for revenge than sense - it consumed him whole - it was his Achilles heal.

Adam killed Harry right in front of his death card. Adam caught Harry in his car at a rest stop in New Jersey, halfway between New York City and Pennsylvania. While across the country, Maury killed Paula Gamble as her death card was left unopened in her mailbox.

As each founder was killed in different states and countries, their death cards were filed away as evidence by the local police department, never to see the light of day. And so the murders were never connected, the lines of communication never opened and, therefore, Angela Petrelli would sit in jail - which was fine by her.

Perhaps she could have spoken up, saved some of her friends lives, but Angela Petrelli said nothing because who would believe her.

And besides, that meant giving away her own secrets - past and future. Adam by his mere presence would give it away. And so each night before it happened **, ** Angela would see her friends killed by Adam and Maury and there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing she could do but watch, just like all the times before.

But much like Kaito, Angela thought to herself, "Perhaps we all deserve it." And she did believe that.

It didn't mean it was any easier watching them all die. But then again it was something Angela was very used to. It was what had made her seem cold to others. She had seen it all, literally, and crying didn't change anything. Angela had to cut out her own heart, but the irony of it all was Angela Petrelli never cut out her own heart, she was just very good at pretending most of the time that she had.

And when another Parkman pulled her secrets from her mind Angela felt just like she had so many years before. She felt violated and humiliated and angry. And she fought and she fought hard, for all Angela Petrelli had left were her secrets. It was all she had to hold on to.

And when a Petrelli made a promise, they kept it. She owed Victoria, She would not give up her secret, but in the end, as blood dripped out of her nose, Angela was once again defeated. For this was a power Angela Petrelli was no match for.

"If you take this secret from me, you're not just like your father," she looked at the blood dripping off her fingers. "you are him." And then Angela looked at Matt with daggers in his eyes.

But Matt Parkman had to do what he felt was right, what he felt was saving Victoria's life. Angela thought all Matt was doing was putting the bullet into Victoria himself. Maybe if Angela had let the info out sooner, perhaps Victoria Pratt wouldn't have been killed, but perhaps not.

Matt did what Angela had been doing her entire life. He picked the lesser of two evils to do what he felt was for the greater good. It was his first lesson.

The next day Angela was informed she was being released and Nathan was on his way to pick her up. She asked if along with a change of clothes he could bring her make-up and nail polish.

As Angela got dressed, she noticed the cuts and bruises on her body and they felt so foreign to her, like a forgotten friend she hadn't seen in years. It had been so long since Angela had seen cuts or bruises on her body, she almost didn't recognize what they were. Linderman had healed her so many times, she didn't remember what it felt like or looked like. She ran her fingers along the red slashes on her face and the purple marks on her legs trying to remember if bruises turned yellow first or if that came later, if the marks on her face were deep enough to scar - and how long it would take before she knew. She almost became curious about them the way a baby feels when they first find out they have fingers and toes. Was a person human anymore if they could no longer see their scars or the consequences of their actions? Angela didn't think so, for her scars ran deeper and no magic blood or Daniel Linderman's power could take those away. The difference now was Angela looked just how she felt. And then Angela Petrelli apply her make-up.

* * *

**Nathan & Angela Petrelli**

_Manhattan_

* * *

The press outside the jailhouse was blinding. As soon as they caught sight of her and of Nathan, who exited first, the yelling and the flash bulbs were overwhelming.

"Mrs. Petrelli! Mrs. Petrelli. Why did you confess? Do you know who did it?"

"Are you protecting the killer!?" A another one shouted.

It was a sea of people and passing by them felt like she was being pushed by a wave, Angela said nothing and let nothing show on her face. Although it was hard to not see stars from the flashes of the cameras.

"Mr. Petrelli!" The reporters in the crowd shouted to Nathan who pushed through the crowd without committing a felony, not liking the free-for-all at all, the frenzy. "Were the personal reasons why you stepped down from office due to the disappearance of your brother, Mr. Petrelli."

"Is it true the reason you stepped down was over the death of your brother? Who is your mother protecting?"

"No comment!" Nathan opened the car door and made sure his mother got in first, before getting into the back seat after her.

Mother and son sat in silence the entire ride. Angela didn't seem too thankful or pleased with her release from jail, but then Nathan wasn't in the best of moods himself. But then they were both broken people now.

Nathan was becoming what Angela didn't want him to be, what she had tried to shield him, Peter and Claire from.

Angela was surprised when they reached Peter's apartment and not her own home. Nathan got out and opened the door for his mother, it was habit, it was the way he was brought up, but he still didn't speak to her.

Nathan walked into the apartment first, walking into the living room . Matt was waiting for them . Nathan looked like he might explode, he was still angry. Obviously, Angela was there to give answers again.

"I suppose I have you to thank for my early release from Jail." She looked at Matt.

"You didn't kill anyone, Ma" Nathan had his back to her and wouldn't look at her.

And when Matt showed her Victoria's death card and told her she was dead, she looked at the picture with sadness and a feeling of "she didn't deserve it."

"Where is Adam going next?" Matt asked her.

Nathan snapped in before Angela could answer. "How long are we going to suffer for your sins? For your generation's deeds?"

Angela, with one quick and fast gesture, handed Victoria's death card over to Matt. She was done with it.

"Adam wanted revenge on those of us who betrayed him. It's done now. Let it go, Nathan. It's over." She had worked so hard,there was nothing more to do. She had accepted her fate, so should he. There was nothing more to fight for, no one else to save. He was living in the past again.

And when Nathan told her Peter was alive, it was like the entire screen in front of her flipped, as if a movie frame stuck in the projector. She wasn't sure she heard it right and her body was caught.

"And he's working with Adam. They both killed Victoria Pratt." Matt continued. "Their fingerprints are all over the murder scene."

And the tears and emotion came to Angela's face and her head bobbled from the strain and she gave out a huge painful sigh. For all her sins really had come home to roost. For now Adam was manipulating her and Arthur's son, just as he had done to them, so many years ago.

She walked to Nathan and he wouldn't take her gaze. It was painful. "It all went so wrong. " She walked away from Nathan slowly as she talked, thinking back on everything she had done in her life, everything she was capable of. She stopped and told the men her tale.

"Thirty years ago, a group of us came together to change the world." She gritted her teeth holding in her emotion, "To fix it." She held in her hatred for what had transpired.

Angela Petrelli did not hold her past in any sense of nostalgia, not like Linderman or Bob did. She was in fact disgusted by it. "And Adam ... had a perspective on history that was compelling , and we believed in him. I did." She gestured with her head, oh what a fool she had been. "Linderman... your father.."

"Bob said you locked him away..." Nathan wanted answers.

"Nooo...' She said soft and breathy. "Not at first." She remembered how she had once looked up to Adam, how she had once trusted him. "In the beginning, I helped him." She wasn't very proud of that, but it was the truth. She also knew how much she believed in him, how much she had believed.

"You what?!" Nathan wasn't too happy himself.

"And in the end, Adam decided that the world just wasn't worth fixing and that it needed to be wiped clean with an unstoppable virus." She took a breath. "And just before it was too late. I ..." she remembered calling Kaito. "I came to realize how wrong it was."

"Did you?" Nathan questioned. "You and Linderman wanted to blow up New York to save the world. Doesn't sound to me like you've changed much at all, Ma."

Now was not the time to quibble over details as Angela Petrelli flashed to what she had seen so many years ago, a future where 97 percent of the world's population was killed by the virus. She turned quickly toward Matt and her son.

"Only someone with Peter's abilities could get to where the virus is stored. That's why Adam chose him."

Just like he had chosen her, chosen Linderman and Arthur. He picked people who would do for him what he could not do himself. Adam was a user and a manipulator; she had learned from the best.

"Where would that be, Mrs. Petrelli?" Matt asked her.

"Oddess. Texas." She looked at Matt. "Primatech." She looked at Nathan.

Nathan walked up to Angela with disgust, not even able to say anything. He tried to walk away - leave her and her lies behind.

Angela grabbed Nathan by the arm with full force, for she knew it was the only way she could get him to listen. Because it was just how important her words were and he had to understand. Angela never flinched - she had looked down people tougher than him.

"Adam will never quit. One bullet, right thought his head. It's the only way."

And then Angela's son left her side and this time she knew she might never get him back. And then before Matt could leave, inside her head, Angela told him if he couldn't stop Peter, he would have to kill him, too. For she knew that to save the world, she would have to let her son go. She knew that her own feelings were not as important as 97 percent of the population. Because Angela Petrelli knew from experience and her dreams what that virus could do - do to the world. She was sacrificing her own feelings, cutting out her own heart to save the world. It was the most unselfish thing Angela Petrelli had ever done and perhaps the first real unselfish act of her entire lifetime.

And although this Angela Petrelli would never know it, in a different future, all of her thoughts and reflection after the explosion and the virus would cause Angela to finally see her son Peter for what he really was, a person and not her child, not the savior she gave birth too, not just her hope's future, but the world's. That after all those years of cursing what she felt made her weak, her heart, she saw that it was the one thing that made her son the most powerful one of them all - in so many ways.

And in that different future, she would hold tough, not telling Peter who she was, because there was no time for that, but telling him who he was. Telling and showing him the pride and faith she had in him, that he was able to fly in the face of danger and do what she had been too weak to do, save the world.

For in the end, what made Angela Petrelli weak made her son the strongest. And perhaps he would be able to do what she had not been able to do: keep her hope alive. For after all the evils of the world are released, when the last of the visitors of Pandora's Box have left the building,what remains is hope. Hope that her sons would be able to save the world for the greater good. And it made her proud. Proud that they were her children, at what they were capable of, even with her as a mother. Maybe Angela's greater purpose was nothing more than giving birth to the saviors of the world. Perhaps sometimes , our children must _finish_ what we were unable to _finish_.

And once again Nathan and Peter, Angela's gifts from god, saved the world.

Angela Petrelli

Manhattan

It was actually nice to be home, but Angela Petrelli didn't feel much like celebrating. Her house felt colder and lonelier than she had ever remembered as she roamed around her living room, playing with her wedding band and flicking the fingers attached to her engagement ring. And she could feel a new sense of confidence coming back to her, but she still waited. Waited for the news that both her sons were alive, or both of her sons were dead. Again, Angela Petrelli waited.

That was when her cell phone rang.

"Yes?" Angela answered to the voice on the other end of the phone. She listened to the voice and went into Arthur's study.

She took the remote to the television, sat down, and turned it on and when Nathan was shot she had to hold in her cries, literally as her eyes filled with tears, so much so it was a marvel they were being held in at all. For Angela would not show the person on the other end of the line, she would not show the Company that she was weak, that this was the way to break her. But of course, they already knew. No one at the Company didn't know that the soft spot in a Petrelli was their family. But Angela would show no weakness, she would be steel, as she watched the aftermath and she knew her son was dead.

"I know. It was unavoidable," she said.

She understood, but it didn't mean she liked it. In the madness, your secrets can be used against you as a weapon and secrets kill. Angela knew that and she had tried and again failed to save her child from it. She knew that the secrets were paramount over everything and there was nothing she could do about it. Angela Petrelli was in the mob and in the mob, snitches are silenced. Yes, Angela Petrelli understood it, it doesn't mean she had to like it.

"You do know that you've now opened Pandora's Box." And she hung up her phone as her head trembled from the pain of holding in her hurt.

But still, she would not let herself cry, because if she cried that meant it was over, that meant Nathan was dead. Finally, as her head bobbled from side to side from the strain and she turned off the television set, one small tear bled from Angela Petrelli's left eye. It wasn't over. It just couldn't be. And she wouldn't let it be.

She had to remind herself of the hope at the bottom of Pandora's box. Not faith, but hope. Hope was what Charles had seen in Peter's eyes. And Angela Petrelli had hope. She finally had hope. It was small, but she had to have it. She had to have it to survive. She was, after all, a capable woman.

"And you know the rest..." Angela spoke in her head. Peter let his mother go, dissolved the images from his family's brains and Angela was pulled out of her life and back into her present.

Claire Bennet, Peter, Nathan & Angela Petrelli

Manhattan

It was night now and Angela Petrelli took a large breath through her nose as she was thrown from her nightmare and back into her living room. And there was Nathan, alive and Claire and Peter all looking at her.

She took in a deep breath and her head bobbled. She sighed large, three times, and took two steps back.

Her family just looked at her, unable to speak.

And that was when it was all just too overwhelming for Angela – reliving her life –reliving all that pain. Her entire body seemed to shut down and Angela Petrelli cried full out for the first time in a long time. It was messy and uncontrollable and weak and everything Angela didn't want to be seen as, but that was just what it was. And she turned from her family not wanting to look at them. Not wanting to show them.

Peter looked at Nathan, he couldn't take it anymore and he walked toward his mother, turned her around and hugged her.

Angela was shocked. Yet, Peter's hug felt like that drink of water in the desert, it made her feel alive again, and she let a cry out as she felt his body wrap around her.

"I thought you'd hate me..." she cried through dripping tears and emotion, her voice was gravelly and husky.

"No.. Ma...' Nathan was finally in the moment with them. "No. Ma.' He shook his head and walked toward her. He took hold of her form. Nathan was still confused, not knowing what had just happened, unsure how to react, but he knew he had to hug her, hug her for now.

And after Angela was able to calm down and she looked at her sons with pride, Peter took his finger and lifted her tears from her cheek.

"You can put all that behind you, Mom." Peter told her. "It's what we do next, that's what's important."

Angela smiled through her tears.

"We can help ya, Ma." Nathan spoke.

Angela looked at Claire, who was just standing there. Her eyes were wet and she looked as stunned as Nathan, but she said nothing.

"You don't have to–" Angela spoke. "You don't have to say anything." She nodded her head.

"I'm not ready yet, I'm sorry." Claire said honestly.

Angela nodded her head. She understood.

After a moment, Claire spoke two words softly. "Thank you."

"I can take that." Angela said through her stifled tears.

And togethe_r_ they all closed Pandora's Box.

They closed the door. But, of course, when one door closes, another opens. For it is never over. The center cannot hold, things always fall apart and Angela Petrelli waited for the other shoe to drop, for it always did. Time is like gravity - it always pulls itself back on course.

Old habits die hard. And no one tells all their secrets - especially Angela Petrelli.

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

I want to thank everyone for coming this far with me. I have had a great joy bringing this to people and I hope you felt the same. It was a lot of hard work - if I entertained you or moved you - please show your support and review. For those who have, my love goes out to you for your support and love.

Thank you.

_Enjoy Season Three_


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